Cave rescue in Pope County takes seven hours
POPE COUNTY, Ark. – A cave rescue in Pope County took seven hours to complete.
It happened on the Pedestal Rock trail by Arch Loop at the far northern corner of Pope County. Brenda Eckhardt made one wrong step on uneven ground, and her son called 911.
'As soon as I fell, my leg was at a very wrong angle. We knew it was bad,' Eckhardt said.
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Blown-out tendons and severe sprains ended Brenda Eckhardt and her son's hiking trip, but it was far from the end of their day or the day of the Pope County Emergency Medical Service
Hannah D'Amato and other Hector first responder volunteers arrived first.
'When I arrived on scene, we probably laid in the dirt about an hour before Pope County was able to get to us,' D'Amato said.
Pope County EMS Paramedic Supervisor Brittany Phillips said the biggest challenge was getting Erkhardt out. 14 first responders were part of the call.
'It took us about 8 to 12 of us to get her out of this trail,' Phillips said.
Many, including Pope County EMS Paramedic Supervisor Corey Pintado, never performed a rescue under such conditions.
'Mind you, this trail is only about a foot and a half, two feet, and the stokes basket at its narrowest point is about a foot and a half,' Pintado said.
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Walking beside the basket, they took turns over four hours, carefully navigating around trees, rocks, and ledges. Half of the people carrying Eckhardt were volunteers.
'At first, when the opportunity to do this interview came up, I was like 'Oh heck no. I don't want to go on TV and be the face of the idiot that fell on the trail, right?' But I felt about it a little bit more and you know it's a chance to honor that team because without them I wouldn't have been coming off that trail. I could not walk,' Eckhardt said.
She was safely delivered to an ambulance and then a helicopter to the hospital. In the end, it was a seven-hour response. Each rescuer said they would do it again.
'It definitely takes a special kind of person, and I don't know if that's a special kind of crazy or a special kind of caring,' Phillips stated.
Eckhardt will undergo reconstructive surgery at the end of April with about nine months of physical therapy to follow.
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Paramedics asked if she would want to go hiking again, and she said yes. She wants to return to this Pedestal Rock, but she would be skipping the cave.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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