Three People, Two Horses Fall off Trails

Three people fell off steep Santa Barbara trails on 6/18. Two were riding horses; one was on a bicycle. All were found by the County Search and Rescue squad and transported to Cottage Hospital in serious but stable condition. In the first incident, a group of mounted Forest Service employees were making their way along the Santa Cruz trail in the Paradise Canyon area when one of the female employees and her horse tumbled off the edge and into a canyon. Later in the afternoon, rescue crews responded to a rider who tried to negotiate his bike around the locked gate at one end of a Santa Ynez River bridge when he lost his balance and careened into a creek bed. At around the same time, one of the riders from the original Forest Service group fell from a 30-foot cliff when his horse tried to turn around on the trail.