A hunter experienced a medical emergency Thursday while archery hunting in a tree stand in State Game Lands Number 95, but he could not safely lower himself to the ground to get help.

Luckily, the man was in the territory of West Sunbury Volunteer Fire Department, where a majority of firefighters had gone through tree stand rescue training only a few weeks earlier.

Reid Campbell, captain of the West Sunbury Volunteer Fire Department, said the rescue went exactly as the department prepared for in the training.

“We took in the ladders, but we had to return to the truck and get a three section extension ladder,” Campbell said. “We had to go higher above him in the tree to attach a lowering system to him. You have to be above him so you can pull him up and move him down and remove him from the tree. There would be two to three people involved.”

According to Campbell, members of the department took the initiative in early October to have the tree stand rescue training, seeing that archery and hunting is common in the area the department covers. This was the first time the department had to perform such a rescue.

There are not many other efficient ways to save someone from a precarious tree stand situation, Campbell said.

“When you go 30-feet up and sit in a perch in a tree, I don't think there's a whole lot” that can be done, he said.

Campbell said people who plan to hunt from a tree stand should alert at least one other person as to where they will be, so they can get help if necessary. Campbell added that the Butler County dispatchers who took the emergency call were able to ping the man’s cellphone so firefighters could find him easily.

While the training helped the department pull off a successful rescue, there was some luck involved in the ensuing transport, according to Campbell.

“We got the gentleman down into a basket and transported him by UTV out of the woods,” Campbell said. “The ironic thing about the UTV is that the member who brought up the training had brought (the UTV) to the training and left it on the trailer just in case.

“Rescue took about two hours from the time we got there to when he came back out to the ambulance.”