ICE-SAR search & rescue personnel from Mývatn, Húsavík and Kópasker responded yesterday to a call from Dettifoss waterfall, where a woman had fallen and injured her feet and legs. It took around an hour to secure the injured woman and carry her over a hundred meters to the waiting ambulance.
Personnel from the same three ICE-SAR teams had barely returned to base following the call out, when they needed to respond to a second one—also about a woman who had fallen at Dettifoss and injured her lower limbs. The second accident seemed worse than the first and the woman is believed to have broken bones.
Dettifoss is Europe’s most powerful waterfall and is located in the northeast of Iceland. It is a popular tourist destination, but also very remote.
Earlier in the day rescue workers from Vík and the Eyjafjöll areas of South Iceland were called out to attend to a tourist who had fallen into a ravine along the Fimmvörðuháls route, but they were able to turn back before reaching the scene when it became clear the man was not seriously injured and would be assisted by other tourists.
