Crews rescue camper injured while hiking

A crew of rescue personnel and game wardens spent Monday night and part of Tuesday morning helping evacuate a 12-year-old boy injured while hiking in the Moosehead Lake region.

A group of more than two dozen children and nearly a dozen adults from a summer camp in the Belgrade lakes area were descending from the summit of Big Spencer Mountain around 5:30 p.m. Monday when one of the campers fell and injured his leg.

Standing roughly 3,200 feet, Big Spencer Mountain is located north of the village of Kokajo between Moosehead Lake’s northern end and Caribou Lake.

According to information from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, counselors with the group from Camp Modin recognized that the leg injury was serious and brought the boy back to a helicopter landing pad near the summit.

LifeFlight could not land on the site, however, so two paramedics dropped from the helicopter to stay with the boy, identified as Phil Safrin of New York.

They were joined by several game wardens as well as fire personnel and emergency medical technicians from Greenville who hiked up the mountain, arriving at about 10 p.m., according to DIF&W. A half-hour later, after securing the boy on a stretcher, the group began the challenging descent.

The rescue group reached the bottom at about 4:30 a.m., whereupon the boy was transported to Charles A. Dean Memorial Hospital in Greenville.

No other information was available Tuesday evening.

Located on the shores of Salmon Lake, Camp Modin is described on the facility’s Web site as New England’s oldest Jewish camp. It draws campers from throughout the U.S. and numerous countries around the world.