MONADNOCK REGION — Police and state Fish and Game officers were summoned twice within 18 hours over the weekend to calls for help involving hikers, officials said.

The more serious of the two occurred around noon Saturday at Monadnock State Park in Jaffrey, when a man identified as John Garrahan, 60, of Arlington, Massachusetts, fell while hiking down the White Dot Trail just below the summit of Mt. Monadnock.

In the other case, an unidentified woman was hiking on trails off Prescott Road in Peterborough Friday evening when she apparently got lost on her way home after taking a shortcut.

Officials said that although the woman has used the shortcut before, she “became disoriented due to the onset of darkness” and “took a wrong turn.”

She was able to call 911, officials said, before her phone’s battery died.

Police had summoned Fish and Game conservation officers for assistance, but they located her in the area of 154 Middle Hancock Road, negating the need for Fish and Game personnel to respond.

As for the Saturday incident, Fish and Game Lt. William Boudreau said Garrahan suffered a serious, but not life-threatening, head injury when he fell in what’s known as the Paradise Valley area.

As luck would have it, according to Boudreau, an off-duty Mountain Patrol Ranger with the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, who is also an emergency medical technician, happened to be hiking nearby and went to Garrahan’s aid.

The ranger “was able to assist Garrahan down the mountain to the Old Toll Road,” Boudreau said. From there, a conservation officer drove Garrahan and his two hiking companions to an awaiting Jaffrey-Rindge ambulance, where medical personnel tended to Garrahan and transported him to a local hospital for treatment.

In a statement, Boudreau noted that since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, “Monadnock State Park has seen a surge in hikers,” roughly 90 percent of whom “are from out of state.”

Conservation officers, as well as all first-responders, “encourage people who are enjoying the outdoors to do so with a great deal of caution,” Boudreau said in the statement.

“People putting themselves at risk results in a multitude of first responders and volunteers having to abandon social distancing guidelines, thus placing them at risk,” he said.

And remember, he added, that an injury sustained “in the backcountry demands a lot more first responders than a similar injury on the street.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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