A 33-year-old filmmaker is lucky to be alive after plunging 100 feet off a cliff band on Tom, Dick and Harry Mountain, a jagged three-summit ridge in Oregon's Mount Hood National Forest. The accident happened around 3 P.M. on September 15, while the man and a small crew were shooting an indie film near the ridge's second peak, complete with rigged ropes and a drone.
According to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, the man lost his footing at the top of the cliff, fell roughly 100 feet, then slid another 15 to 20 feet down the steep slope. Witnesses found him breathing but immobile, with visible injuries. What happened next likely saved his life: about half an hour after the fall, two bystanders reached him — one a medical doctor. The pair kept him from rolling further downhill, applied tourniquets and direct pressure to control the bleeding, and managed his shock symptoms while relaying his condition to rescuers. Sergeant Adam Peterson of the sheriff's search-and-rescue team said that on-scene trauma care made a real difference given the severity of the fall.
A full rescue operation followed. An Oregon National Guard helicopter crew and a paramedic reached the man by 5 P.M., and within half an hour he was strapped to a backboard, airlifted, and flown to a nearby hospital. His name and injuries haven't been released.
The mountain itself has a name that sounds like a joke but deserves respect. The two-mile volcanic ridge sits about 55 miles southeast of Portland, its three peaks topping out around 5,070 feet. Officials added the "Harry" only in 1969, when the U.S. Board on Geographic Names formalised the moniker inspired by the "every Tom, Dick and Harry" idiom. The lower Mirror Lake trails below are easy, popular hiking, but the upper ridgelines are steep, exposed and loose underfoot — exactly the kind of terrain where a single misstep turns serious. Rescuers respond to a steady stream of mostly minor injuries there, Peterson noted, though the truly grave falls tend to happen on Mount Hood's south face, just across the highway.
For travellers, the takeaway is straightforward. Tom, Dick and Harry Mountain is a fantastic Portland-area hike with a payoff view of Mount Hood, but the summit section demands care: sturdy footwear, attention on the loose rock, and no dangling over edges for a photo. And the doctor-bystander story is a reminder worth internalising — knowing basic first aid, or at least carrying a small kit with the ability to stop heavy bleeding, matters far more in the backcountry than most of us assume. Satellite messaging devices and sharing your route also shrink rescue times when things go wrong.
If you're planning a visit, stick to the Mirror Lake loop for a mellow day out, and only push to the summits in dry, clear conditions.