Woman Falls Into Snow "Sink Hole" At Mount Rainier National Park

A woman received multiple injuries when she fell an estimated 20 feet down into a sink hole created by melting snow at Mount Rainier National Park.

Park officials say the unidentified woman fell about 6 p.m. Friday when the surface of the snow gave way in the Paradise parking lot near the Jackson Visitor Center. A small cavern had been formed beneath the surface by heat from an electrical transformer buried 20 feet below, according to park officials.

The woman fell at least 10 feet onto the transformer, and then onto the ground, "sustaining multiple traumatic injuries," they said.

Climbing rangers at Paradise lowered a rope into the hole, descended, and stabilized the woman. She was raised to the surface shortly before 8 p.m., and then airlifted by helicopter to an Olympia hospital.

Park officials did not release the woman's name, hometown, or her condition.