Hikers rescued in Frontenac Provincial Park

A group of hikers were rescued in Frontenac Provincial Park on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, after one of them sustained a leg injury and the group used the What3Words app to indicate their location to first responders.

First responders were dispatched to the park in the area of Salmon Lake Road shortly after 8 a.m. to conduct a wilderness rescue after they received a report of four persons in distress, one of whom had sustained injuries.

In addition to wilderness rescue teams from South Frontenac, additional crews also responded from Loyalist Township Emergency Services, according to South Frontenac Fire & Rescue (SFFR).

First responders were able to reach the hikers shortly before 10 a.m., at which point they were able to assess the extent of their injuries and determine that they were not life-threatening.

By about 10:40 a.m., the patients had been assisted back to the staging area and were placed under Paramedic care, said SFFR.

“All FD apparatus have been released from this incident. Many thanks to all personnel and agencies for their collaborative help this morning, Frontenac Paramedics, our mutual-aid partners at Loyalist Township Emergency Services and our Dispatch Technicians behind the radio mic at Kingston Fire Rescue Communications Centre,” SFFR said in a release on the incident on Saturday morning.

SFFR confirmed that the “What3Words” app was used to assist in locating the stranded hikers in this incident. What3Words is an application that can be downloaded onto a smartphone and assigns a unique 3 word code to every 3-metre square in the world. The application describes itself as “the easiest way to share and find exact locations” and has been used by local first responders several times to successfully locate lost and stranded travellers.