A dramatic video shows a man’s rescue from under a bridge in Washington state, after emergency responders said he fell down a steep embankment and became stranded in the area’s slick, mountainous terrain.
In the footage, a rescuer is seen using a rope to reach the man by scaling down the side of the embankment, which dips hundreds of feet below the High Steel Bridge in northwestern Washington’s Mason County. Once the rescuer retrieves the man successfully, the video shows both of them being hoisted back up to safety.
The man was uninjured, said Mason County Search and Rescue, which was one of several groups that responded to the incident. The organization shared the video of the rescue on Facebook with a warning for future visitors, as well as a reminder that the canyon below the High Steel Bridge is closed by federal order.
“The terrain looks hikeable. It is not,” the organization said. “It is steep, slippery, and unforgiving — and it has taken lives.”
The High Steel Bridge spans a deep gorge along a section of the Skokomish River, which runs through the Olympic National Forest.
People are currently prohibited from entering the area directly below and surrounding the bridge, under the terms of an order from the U.S. Forest Service that is set to remain in place until November. The order has been in place since November 2024 and was originally enacted for safety reasons, with officials saying at the time that it aimed to reduce “the number of rescue and recoveries required by county resources.”
“The rock surface is extremely slick and unstable leading to many injuries and fatalities,” the order read, in part.
Mason County Search and Rescue said the man they recently rescued had “slipped beneath” the bridge but did not elaborate on the circumstances of his fall. Olympic Mountain Rescue, another organization involved in the response, said in a separate social media post that the man “had gone after his drone,” accidentally slid down the embankment, “and couldn’t get back up on his own.”
Ten members of the Olympic Mountain Rescue team performed what the organization called “a technical rope” operation to lift the man up from the bottom of the gorge.
“Grateful for everyone who turned out an an incredible job by all teams involved for what turned out to be a multi-faceted technical rescue,” said Olympic Mountain Rescue. The organization also echoed Mason County Search and Rescue’s words of caution for anyone planning to visit the site, adding, “Enjoy this place. Just please enjoy it from the bridge.”
