A 72-year-old man was rescued after suffering a medical emergency while on a rafting trip in the Lehigh Gorge in Lehigh Township Sunday afternoon.

Lehigh & Lausanne Rural Vol. Fire Co. Fire Chief Tim Rossman said the dispatch came in at 12:23 p.m. for a report of a man having a medical emergency on one of the rafts while on a rafting trip in the area of mile marker 115 in the Gorge.

Rossman said the man’s identity and residence was not available.

“He apparently suffered some type of medical emergency, which had put him into cardiac arrest,” Rossman said. “There just so happened to have been a doctor and a nurse on the same boat trip, and with the tour guide, they realized what was going on, notified 911 and started the CPR on the gentleman.”

Rossman said that after about 15 minutes of CPR, the victim was able to come around.

“They were doing this initially in the raft, and then they got him over to a rock probably 10-15 feet away from the shore that was flat; they put him there and did CPR until he came around, sat up, and was talking,” he said. “We had probably a 30-foot drop that we had to go down and then travel about 200 feet to where he was located and go into the river a little bit to pull him up. It went very well.”

Rossman said there were no injuries.

“We deployed a rope system to bring him up from his location,” he said. “We put him in a stokes basket, and used ropes and the assistance of other firefighters and he was transported by ambulance to Penn Haven Junction on the trail, where a helicopter landed and the patient was loaded and transported.”

Rossman said emergency personnel were on scene for nearly two hours.

“It was a very good rescue,” he said. “Everything went well.”

Rossman said also assisting at the scene were units from Citizens’ Fire Company No. 1 in Weatherly who provided manpower, Hickory Run rangers, Pennsylvania State Police, Lehighton paramedics, Mahoning Valley Ambulance from the Weatherly station, Fish & Boat Commission, and a MedEvac helicopter.