Officers carry an injured woman down to the foot of Nui Dinh mountain in Ho Chi Minh City, April 5, 2026. Photo courtesy of Ho Chi Minh City Police
A Chinese woman on a weekend hike with coworkers in southern Vietnam had to be carried down a mountain on a stretcher by nine police officers on April 5 after she fractured her leg on a steep slope and became stranded.
Zhang Lu, 38, was hiking with a group of eight colleagues from a company in Tay Ninh Province, when she fell and broke her leg partway up Dinh mountain in the former Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, now part of Ho Chi Minh City.
The group, made up of five men and three women including both Vietnamese and Chinese nationals, was unable to move her down the rugged terrain on their own and called police shortly after noon.
A fire and rescue team under Ho Chi Minh City Police dispatched two vehicles and nine officers, who reached the base of the mountain within five minutes. With the trail too narrow and steep for vehicles, the team set out on foot, hiking more than 2 km uphill in the midday heat while carrying a stretcher and rescue equipment.
When they reached Zhang, she was conscious but badly shaken, officers said, rattled by the pain of the fracture and the harsh sun. The team splinted her leg, administered first aid and worked to calm her before beginning the descent.
Getting her back down proved the hardest part of the operation. The slope was uneven and slick in places, and the stretcher team had to move slowly to keep her stable over rocky sections. She was brought off the mountain safely at 1:50 p.m. and transferred by ambulance to Ba Ria Hospital.
Nui Dinh sits about 70 km from central Ho Chi Minh City, rising to roughly 500 meters at its highest point. The mountain is a popular weekend destination for hikers and pilgrims drawn by its forested slopes, streams and Buddhist pagodas, but the trails are steep and studded with loose rock, and accidents are not uncommon among hikers who underestimate the climb.
Conditions turn noticeably more dangerous in the rainy season, when wet stone makes the upper sections treacherous.
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