BAR HARBOR — A tense helicopter rescue was played out Monday before 200 tourists as a Massachusetts teen-ager was elevated to safety after falling more than 80 feet from Cadillac Mountain.

David Bevacqua, 15, of Andover, Mass., was listed in critical but stable condition at the Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor.

Hospital officials said Bevacqua received multiple contusions, abrasions, head lacerations, a ruptured spleen and a collapsed lung as a result of his fall. Plans were being made Monday afternoon to transport the teen-ager to the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

According to George Leone, the East District Ranger at Acadia National Park, Bevacqua and his 12-year-old brother were hiking at the 1,500-foot summit of Cadillac Mountain when the pair left the trail near the southeast face of the mountain.

Both boys were making their way down a steep area of the mountain when the 15-year-old apparently became disoriented in a layer of fog. Bevacqua slipped and fell more than 40 feet, striking a ledge. The boy rolled from the ledge and plunged another 40 feet before coming to rest on another ledge.

Bevacqua’s brother ran back to the summit to tell his parents about the accident. A call to ANP Ranger Headquarters was made from the Cadillac Gift Shop at 11:37 a.m.

Leone, who was the first ranger to reach the boy, said Bevacqua was found in a tree-clustered section of the mountain.

“He was still conscious, in fact, he maintained consciousness throughout the rescue,” Leone said, adding the boy’s vital signs did not begin to stabilize until he was given oxygen.

By noon, more than a dozen rangers had converged at the Cadillac summit and Leone said weather conditions had improved enough to consider calling the 112th Medivac Co. of the Maine Army National Guard, which dispatched a helicopter to the scene.

Arriving shortly after 1 p.m., the helicopter attached a line to a litter prepared by the park rangers and Bevacqua was airlifted to safety. The teen-ager was transported to the Bar Harbor ball field where a waiting ambulance took him to the hospital.