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Bad Roads Slows WV Rescue in the Cheat River Canyon

By Kathy Plum, Morgantown Dominion Post, May 9, 2016 Masontown, WV -- The condition of the road to the Jenkinsburg bridge slowed firefighters as they worked Sunday to rescue an injured rafter.

The Masontown Volunteer Fire Department was called at about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, when a man fell from a raft on a trip by a licensed river rafting company. Guides pulled the man from the river and brought him to the riverbank on a raft, Masontown Fire Chief Dan Luzier said.

The problem was getting him to medical care quickly and safely, the chief said. KAMP Ambulance brought an ambulance to the top of the steep, single-lane dirt road, County Route 14/4, that leads from the Masontown side of the bridge to the river. Because of the deteriorating condition of the road, neither the ambulance or fire department trucks were able to go down it.

Firefighters took a side-by-side, a type of ATV, to the river. Normally it's a 15-minute trip from the river to where the ambulance was parked, Luzier said.

"Because of his condition -- with broken bones and we felt he had some internal injuries -- it would have done him more harm," to go on the rough road up to the Masontown side, Luzier said. Had the trip been attempted, he estimated it would have taken 45 minutes to get up the hill, with the patient in a Stokes basket on the all-terrain vehicle.

Instead, firefighters went out by the Bruceton side of the bridge and met Bruceton Ambulance on the Hudson Road, about a 10-minute trip. The ambulance then took the patient to Valley Point, where Bruceton-Brandonville volunteer firefighters set up a landing zone for HealthNet medical helicopter. The man was flown to Ruby Memorial Hospital. Luzier did not know his condition Sunday afternoon.

The area at the Jenkinsburg Bridge or High Bridge, also known as the Blue Hole, is a popular spot for summer entertainment. It is also where rafters put into the Cheat.

Firefighters aren't the only ones to express concerns about the condition of the road. At a recent Preston County Commission meeting, Friends of the Cheat Executive Director Amanda Pitzer and representatives of American Whitewater and Cheat River Outfitters asked county commissioners for help getting it fixed. She noted that emergency vehicles would have problems with access, as well as the potential economic impact.

The last two miles before the river are the worse, Pitzer told commissioners, She said one culvert is especially bad and rock needs to be jackhammered out to make the road passable. The road is single lane most of the way, with a hillside on one side and a sheer drop to the river on the other.

"It's the exact scenario we were worried about," Commission President Craig Jennings said Sunday. "We've got enough situations around here with weather and things that can't be fixed," he said, but this could be.

Friends of the Cheat collected donations of $11,000 in 2014 and $8,000 last year to pay for work on the road, and is collecting them again. Any work they fund must be approved by the State Division of Highways (DOH). The DOH was on the road last month but spokeswoman Carrie Bly told The Dominion Post then that, "We're just doing the basic stuff because in our eyes we have to walk a fine line, because it is a very low-traffic roadway most of the time."

"The Bruceton side's not too bad," Luzier said. "But it's our territory. We're the closest."

Bruceton-Brandonville VFD (BBVFD) Assistant Chief John Vincent said while his department didn't have any part in the actual rescue Sunday, water rescues take a lot of manpower. BBVFD firefighters aren't trained in swift water rescues. That would take 20-40 hours' training by the volunteers and the expense for the department. They rely on the county dive team for any rescues involving diving, but the department does have a six-by-six Polaris Ranger it can use for rescues.

But Bruceton-Brandonville already covers the largest territory of any volunteer fire department in Preston County, Vincent noted. It's 156 square miles, roughly the top one-third of the county.

"It would definitely put a strain on our guys if we had to add that territory, especially such a remote and hard to access area," Vincent said.

Luzier said firefighters have talked to legislators about getting help for the road, without success. "We don't want a highway, we just want a way to get there and back," he said.

"It's just starting," he said of the summer recreation on the river. "Here it is in May and it's started already. Usually that means it's going to be a long season."

Preston County Commissioners asked Friends of the Cheat and businesses to return to them with estimates of the economic impact of the road use.