Well-known Coupeville pastor Garrett Arnold was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle today after his back was broken when he fell from a 35-foot-high bluff in the Ledgewood neighborhood north of Greenbank.

Arnold, the senior pastor at Living Hope Foursquare Church, was treated in Harborview’s emergency room.

Central Whidbey Fire and Rescue Chief Ed Hartin said emergency personnel responded to a report of a man having fallen off an embankment near Driftwood Way at 1:21 p.m.

“It appeared they were trimming some grass near the edge and fell off,” Hartin said.

Rescuers arrived to find Arnold upside down on a ledge about 25 feet down the embankment. Hartin said he was conscious but his arms and legs were stuck and that he had been there since about 10:30 a.m.

Hartin said Arnold was found by a young woman who was walking on the beach.

Fire department officials used the district’s Gator ATV and drove onto the beach, then went up onto the bluff to rescue the man. He was lifted onto a stretcher and transported by a Whidbey General Hospital ambulance to Greenbank Farm, where an Airlift Northwest medical helicopter picked him up for the flight to Harborview.

South Whidbey Fire/EMS also assisted in the rescue.