Special Training Helped Firefighters Rescue Hubbard Park Climber

John Kilbride looked relieved and a little dazed as firefighters walked him down a trail from Hubbard Park’s Hanging Hills in Meriden Thursday afternoon.

Kilbride, 61, of Southington, had just spent nearly two hours trapped in those hills, clinging to a crevice in the rock-faced cliffs while firefighters on top of the mountain and across the Merimere Reservoir worked together to rescue him.

The Southington man said he had veered off one of the 1,800-acre park’s trails, according to Fire Chief James Trainor, and knowing that on the ridge above there was another trail, he attempted to climb the rock face to the top – without any climbing gear.

“But then he got to a point where he couldn’t come up or go down,” Trainor said.

Trapped, Kilbride began yelling for help and called 911 from his cell phone at about 12:15 p.m. Dispatchers heard over emergency radio said that he was picking up his phone and putting it down intermittently so that he could use both of his hands to hold on to the rocks.

Jacqueline Melendez of Meriden was jogging near the reservoir when she heard Kilbride’s cries for help.

“I couldn’t see where it was, because of the echoes,” she said. “I tried to look between the crevices and everything, but he wasn’t visible. About 5 minutes later I saw the firefighters, and I thought someone got attacked by a bear.”

Firefighters from Engines 1 and 2 and Truck 1 responded to the scene and started searching for Kilbride.

“They were calling out to see where he was and he was trying to direct them,” Melendez said.

When they discovered him, Engine 1 went up to the ridge above Kilbride and set up a “lowering system” with ropes. One firefighter put on a harness and rappelled down the rock face, but the configuration of the rock set him off course and he ended up being too far to the right of the climber, Trainor said.

Meanwhile, a group of firefighters stood across the reservoir opposite the scene, watching the team maneuver with binoculars and radioing into Engine 1 what they could see from the ground, to guide them.

Engine 1 lowered a second rescue worker from the top of the cliff. The second worker reached Kilbride, and according to Trainor, harnessed him. The truck above lowered the two until they cleared the rock face, and they then walked out through a trail.

According to Trainor, his department makes rescues like these every spring and fall. He said that climbing the rock face is unsafe.  

“My son is a rock climber, and he won’t climb these faces because there’s so much loose rock around,” Trainor said.  

It’s also against the law. After his rescue, Kilbride was awarded a $92 ticket for “Illegal Rock Climbing in a Park.”

Because of high hills and mountains in places like Hubbard Park on the city’s west side and Giuffrida Park on the east, Meriden Firefighters have to take special training for events like these called “high angle rescue.”

Aside from a large tear in the back of his yellow-striped black track pants, Kilbride appeared unharmed by his ordeal. He sat with EMT’s in the back of an ambulance for just a short time as they asked him how he felt, and if he wanted oxygen.

Kilbride did not address the handful of newsmedia gathered around, other than giving a tired nod before getting into the police car that would take him home. He did not return phone calls to his home.