A US tourist broke his leg Monday after falling about 10 meters (33 feet) at the Cinchona waterfall in Alajuela, setting off a rescue that kept Costa Rican Red Cross crews on the mountainside for nearly five hours. The man suffered an open fracture that left him unable to move, which made the operation slower and harder, the Red Cross said. His name and age have not been released.
The Red Cross received the alert at 12:42 p.m. and sent rescue specialists and ambulances to the waterfall, which sits along Route 126 in the mountains north of the Central Valley. Reaching him meant crossing steep, broken terrain. Paramedics gave him pain medication before attempting to move him, and neighbors helped crews carry him out to a safe spot.
The operation ended around 5:30 p.m. The man was in stable condition and was to be taken to a medical center, according to the Red Cross. It has not said which one. Authorities have not said how the fall happened.
Cinchona was among the communities hardest hit by the 2009 earthquake in the area. Its waterfall is one of several that draw a steady flow of visitors along the winding mountain road. Like many of Costa Rica’s mountain waterfalls, it is surrounded by slippery rock and steep slopes where help can take hours to arrive, as Monday’s rescue showed. In September, rescuers searched for an 18-year-old swept away at a waterfall in Tarrazú after heavy storms.
