Man Rescued From Spring Street Trail System Embankment

A 32-year-old man was rescued Sunday evening after a two-and-a-half-hour "complicated, high-angle" operation coordinated by the Manchester Fire Department, according to a news release.

An unidentified man made a 911-distress call at 6:13 p.m. and claimed that he was lost, injured, hallucinating and under the influence of narcotics after entering the Spring Street trail system 24 hours earlier, according to the news release.

It took 12 emergency workers from Manchester and another 10 from Bolton to retrieve the man, according to the release.

The man told authorities that he was walking the trails in an easterly direction and crossed two wooden bridges before he wound up off the trail. He had been drinking from a brook, was "seeing double" and was unable to walk while hearing cars pass by, according to the news release.

Police were able to find him by using GPS ordinates from the man's cell phone. He was found south of Interstate-84 in thick underbrush and near a brook, about 200 yards north of Spring Street and 400 yards south of Highland Street, fire officials said.

Fire officials said it appeared that the man left the trail system near Gardner Street, walked under the highway, through a brook and into the brush. He was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and showing signs of hypothermia, according to the news release.

Getting to him was a challenge, even after a Bolton ATV unit was called to the scene, fire officials said. Through an intricate rope rescue operation, rescuers were lowered 75 feet down an 80-degree embankment to reach the man, fire officials said. He was then placed in a rescue sled and lifted up the embankment by a pulley system, according to the news release.

The man was eventually loaded onto an all-terrain vehicle and then into an ambulance and transported to Manchester Memorial hospital, where he was in fair condition on Sunday night, fire officials said.

A dispatcher remained on the phone with the man throughout the operation, fire officials said.