The family of a 32-year-old fallen climber who died after waiting several hours for a helicopter rescue on Mount Hood filed a $10 million lawsuit Monday against Clackamas County.

The lawsuit claims the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office and Clackamas County 911 were responsible for a series of missteps that contributed to a more than four-hour delay in rescuing John Thornton Jenkins on May 7, 2017.

Jenkins, an experienced climber, fell near the mountain’s summit about 10:40 a.m. in fair weather that day. He tumbled 600 feet, according to news reports at the time.

The lawsuit states that eight minutes later, another climber reached Jenkins and called 911 for help, but a dispatcher transferred the call to the Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff’s Office told the caller to contact the ski patrol at the Timberline ski resort, despite being told Jenkins wasn't a skier and had fallen outside the ski area, according to the lawsuit.

At 11:25 a.m., the ski patrol called the county’s 911 center, which again transferred the call to the Sheriff’s Office, the lawsuit says.

After requests for a helicopter to the ski patrol and the Sheriff's Office, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management called the Oregon Army National Guard at 12:29 p.m. and a helicopter arrived at 3:11 p.m., the suit states.

But as rescuers tried to secure Jenkins in a basket to lift him off the mountain, he stopped breathing, according to the suit.

The lawsuit faults the county for allegedly failing to make a timely request for the helicopter and for allegedly failing to tell other climbers to try a ground rescue.

County spokesman Tim Heider declined comment, citing the pending litigation.

But in response to an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive last year, the county disputed that it failed to launch a prompt rescue. In a statement, the county claimed that a climber who spoke to the Sheriff’s Office on the phone that morning said help wasn’t needed and that 10 climbers were at Jenkins’ side and they "thought they could all help get him out."

The suit doesn't fault the Oregon Army National Guard for the time it took for a helicopter to reach the mountain once orders had been received to mount an air rescue. The Oregonian/OregonLive investigation quoted an official who said the goal is to deploy the helicopter within two hours of receiving a call, and it took 30 minutes for it to fly to the mountain.

Portland attorney Jane Paulson is representing Jenkins' estate. Read the lawsuit here.

-- Aimee Green