Homeless outreach team discovers woman with serious injuries from apparent 25-foot fall

Above: Video of scene at Valley Cemetery where a woman was found seriously injured from an apparent fall. Video/Jeffrey Hastings

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MANCHESTER, NH – Manchester Fire Department Community Outreach Team along with Manchester Mental Health workers visit 12 homeless camps in Manchester daily. On Saturday June 27, 2020, they were visiting an area in Valley Cemetery at 1:30 p.m.

As the members of the team were walking they heard a faint cry for help. The team walked toward where the voice was coming from in the area of the Smith Monument and found a 28-year-old woman with traumatic injuries from a fall.

It appears the woman was in the area behind the Smith Monument in the cemetery and fell approximately 25 feet to the ground into the brush below. Fire personnel called for Engine 11 and Rescue 1 and an AMR ambulance to assist with a high-angle technical rescue.

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District Fire Chief Hank Martineau said they used a basket-type stretcher to remove the woman from the ground below and bring her to a stable location and then transferred her to the waiting ambulance. A trauma team activation was done at the Elliot Hospital to prepare for the patient, who reportedly had multiple serious injuries. The woman was conscious and breathing when she left the scene, according to Martineau.

Fire officials said if the outreach team had not found her, the outcome could have been life-threatening. The woman, whose name has not been released, is being treated at the Elliot Hospital. The extent of her injuries and condition were not immediately available.