Swift Action By First Responders Gets Help to Fall Victim

A Marblehead man rescued from the water after a fall from a cliff late on July 4 was transported to Salem Hospital but is no longer listed as a patient there.

Mark Allen, 70, was placed on a backboard and given medical treatment after falling from a cliff near the Dolphin Yacht Club Thursday night around 9:30, according to the police report.

Police and fire crews climbed down the cliff and entered the water by the end of Wharf Path.

Marblehead police Officer Eric Osattin, who was on mountain bike patrol for the July 4 festivities, responded to the Boston Yacht Club where he and the dockmaster Ken Breen boarded one of the club’s race patrol boats, a 17-foot Boston Whaler.

They arrived in the area of Skinner’s Head, finding the fallen man and rescuers in the water by the rocks.

Police Officer Christopher Gallo and firefighters Matt Tina and Eric Ridge were in the water assisting the victim. A bystander who was believed to have been with Allen when he fell was also in the water trying to help, the report stated.

Officer Osattin and the dockmaster rendezvoused with the Harbormaster’s boat, located nearby, and gathered a backboard and other equipment from the Harbormasters’ craft to transport the victim from the rocky shallow water in the low-draft Whaler.

The rescuers placed the victim on the backboard and on the Whaler’s deck and transported him to the Dolphin Yacht Club, the report stated.

Traffic on State Street made the yacht club a better choice to transfer the patient to an ambulance, getting him medical care sooner.

Mark Allen was transferred to the care of Atlantic Ambulance and transported to Salem Hospital.

A hospital spokeswoman said on July 8, that the hospital did not have a patient by the name of Mark Allen.

Patch left a message on the Allen home phone to see how he was doing.