17-year-old thanks first responders who saved his life after near 40-foot cliff fall

POWELL COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) - It was Fall Break.

17-year-old Luka Mijatovic and his friends decided to spend the day hiking at Red River Gorge on September 30.

“I thought I was picking a pretty moderate trail to be on,” Mijatovic said.

But things quickly took a turn when the group reached Courthouse Rock.

“From what my friends told me, we tried to climb up on this rock but we realized, like it wouldn’t be possible,” Mijatovic said.

When they tried to turn around, ”that’s when I slipped and I couldn’t catch my footing. And so I just fell off the ledge I guess,” Mijatovic said.

When Luka fell, he suffered a major concussion and injured his back and shoulder.

But he wasn’t the only one hurt. He says his friend slipped too.

“He fell like a straight 30 feet. Mine was more like a tumble,” Mijatovic said.

“The closer it gets to the event, the more I don’t remember it.”

For Luka and his friends, they needed help fast. It took multiple agencies to get them back to safety.

“The way we made access to them, was you know it was probably a mile and a half hike in with a whole lot of rope gear and medical equipment,” John May, Chief of Wolfe County Search and Rescue said.

May’s goal was to get them to a helicopter, where Mike Sizemore and Jess Roberts with Air Methods of Kentucky were waiting to transport them to the hospital.

“As far as getting an ambulance into the area that was closest to him like we were, there was really no chance of that,” Sizemore said.

Luka says he was discharged from the hospital that next day, he said his friend was discharged a few days later.

“I’m completely fine now. Like, I don’t really feel anything,” Mijatovic said.

That’s why Luka and his family came to the Middle Fork Fire Department, to thank the first responders who saved him that day.

“We don’t often get to follow up with our patients that we transport, we don’t really ever know what happens to them,” Roberts said.

But that changed when several of Luka’s heroes got to hear it straight from him.