At first, it seemed like the body spotted Monday evening on a rocky ledge below Deception Pass Bridge was part of technical rope rescue training scheduled that evening.
A call was placed to the duty officer at North Whidbey Fire and Rescue asking if the fire department had begun its drills already.
“They saw something that wasn’t moving,” said Mike Brown, fire chief with the agency. “They asked, ‘Did you put a play victim in place early, or a dummy, down for the drill?’
“We said, ‘No we didn’t. We haven’t got started yet.’”
The brief exchange quickly led to the chilling realization that a real person was laying on the rocks.
That led to an emergency response from two fire agencies, a challenging rappelling mission down a steep rock face and a discovery that surprised nearly everyone on hand.
The woman lying on the rocks was still breathing.
“In 22 years of being the coroner, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Island County Coroner Robert Bishop, who was summoned to the scene.