Injured man rescued from Knapp Pond

UPDATE Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2:45 p.m: VSP spokesman Adam Silverman tells The Telegraph that “The Vermont State Police – along with other agencies – responded to a call for an individual in crisis who needed medical assistance. Due to the nature of the call we cannot release any more information.”

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Knapp Pond in Cavendish. Google image

A 35-year-old man who was bleeding profusely was rescued from Knapp Pond Monday evening and flown by helicopter to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H.

Just after 6 p.m., the Cavendish Fire Department and the Ludlow Ambulance were called to Knapp Pond for the report of a man in the water. Cavendish Fire responded, but at 6:15, just before they arrived, the dispatcher reported that a person who called in the emergency said he did not feel safe there and left.

According to scanner traffic, a Weathersfield firefighter arrived a couple of minutes earlier and confirmed the man was in the woods at the back of the first pond.

By the time the Ludlow Ambulance arrived at 6:18, Cavendish acting fire Chief Abe Gross had called for a boat to extract the man since the densely forested and steep land route carrying the patient out would be too difficult to manage on foot. Cavendish Fire personnel hiked back to the man and gave medical attention but since neither Ludlow nor Springfield have a boat, Chester was called out at 6:21 for a water rescue and was en route within 10 minutes.

In the meantime, first responders on the scene called for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock helicopter, telling dispatchers that the man was “going into shock” with lacerations on his forearm, a broken shin and “bleeding a lot.”

“We desperately need a boat to get this gentleman out of here fast,” one responder told the dispatcher.

At 6:44, Cavendish personnel called for extra manpower from Proctorsville to “assist with extricating the subject from the back end of the pond” and getting him to the DHART helicopter, which was set to land in the pond parking lot.

The Chester Rescue truck with a boat arrived at 6:52 and, by 7:12, responders reported that the man was in the boat and on the way to Knapp Pond Road.

At 7:45, Cavendish command declared that the scene under control and the man was on his way to Dartmouth-Hitchcock in the helicopter. By 8:08, all of the units except Vermont State Police had left.

At the time of publication on Tuesday morning, Vermont State Police had not yet issued a press release or returned a phone call requesting more information.

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  1. Cynthia Prairie says:

    It was Knapp 1

  2. D Thomas says:

    Was it Knapp one or two? Someone had been going up to my posted property lately wondering if it was him.

  3. Cynthia Prairie says:

    There were two sources for this article:

    Information as it came across the scanner as it happened, with notes made on the times that events were occurring and

    the Cavendish Fire Department, which was on the scene, and confirmed what we had gathered from scanner traffic.

    If you have more information to tell, I would urge you to go to the State Police and fill out a report.

    Cynthia Prairie
    Editor

  4. Katlynn Wolfe says:

    This article is not accurate at all. The comment from Rhianna is more accurate than this article. And the 911 call isn’t even accurate. The times arent accurate or anything. The fact that the information from this article is not accurate makes me wonder what other articles that have been written are false as well. We were there with Rhianna and her other half and know what happened more than this trumped up article.

  5. Rhianna Pratt says:

    This article is way off. Me and my other half were first on scene and found the man after being asked it we called 911. Once we arrived a man in a truck came right behind and we had just gotten out of our vehicle. We jumped into action to help!