06:50:00
Scott Prow
Pilot, Air St. Luke’s
THESE OWYHEES. WEATHER LIKE a cat-o’-nine-tails.
In less than 30 minutes, these ever-changing mountain skies had closed in on us, bringing with them wind and snow. On the ground, we went from “Okay. So we found these folks” to survival training mode.
Sure. Our patients were receiving some basic medical care, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that rescuers and patients alike might end up being at this crash site a lot longer than anyone wanted or anticipated, given the weather and the logistics we were facing to get them out of the ravine and given we could not land our helicopters down there.
We started to formulate a plan, considering worst-case scenario stuff such as what if things went in the wrong direction. We would need a fire to keep everyone warm and dry. Better conserve radio power so that we didn’t end up with dead radios way down here. And what could we use to build a shelter?
Several of us spent a lot of time gathering firewood because it was difficult to find halfway dry wood fairly close, but when it was all said and done there was a pretty nice-sized pile of wood. Stan and I were in an unspoken race to see which one of us had the coolest survival stuff to get the fire going. Okay. Stan won, probably because I was off getting wood.
Wasn’t long before Amy, the nurse on ASL 1, and Dave had made their way down the hill, leaving Josh Bingaman, their paramedic, with the helicopters to enable halfway decent communications between the crash site, State Comm, and incoming ground crews.
In this drainage, we could not communicate directly with State Comm or anyone else. Our only option was to send word to Josh who, in turn, relayed the message out and got answers back to us.
Considering the trouble we were having with our radios, it was amazing that Heather got through to 911.
Seeing the crash site, Dave was also surprised that we had any survivors, knowing that not too many folks slam into a mountain and survive. There wasn’t even a post-crash fire on this deal. Add the fact that Brian, Jayann, and Heather lasted the night. With continued bad weather, it was fair to predict that if out here much longer, they could have died from exposure.
In our line of work, missions can get cancelled because those on the ground have discovered no viable patients. On other occasions, we land only to end up pronouncing individuals dead at the scene. As part of the EMS community, we have seen some pretty bad stuff. Most of us are not into the whole miracle thing, but this, well, it was probably the closest we had come to actually seeing one up close.
For folks who had just fallen out the sky, Brian, Jayann, and Heather sure had a lot of, well, life and fight left in them. To avoid further injury, Stan, Karen, and Amy wanted the family to stay in the plane, but the “We think it would be best if you stayed in the plane” idea went over like a lead balloon. They were going to get out of that Cessna whether we helped them or not.
Looking like a total zombie, Brian angled himself out without much trouble. Jayann was another deal, sliding out across the pilot’s seat to the passenger side door and then out, a painful process, her body stiff as a board. Waiting for them was a warming fire along with a bed of pine branches on the ground to give them some insulation from the cold ground. Jayann and Brian sat next to each other as we covered them with a space blanket. Certainly not a hot tub. But a start.
Two out. One to go. Well, maybe. We weren’t sure what would happen when all of the weight was out of the plane. Snow on the ground. Shale and mud. The wreck might slide down the mountain. The medical crew, not wanting to move Heather because of her possible broken pelvis coupled with internal bleeding, made the decision to keep her in the plane.
Forget that. Heather started screaming her head off. She wanted out of that plane. Very emotionally charged.
But it didn’t faze any of us. The person who had held it together for the last ten hours, calm enough to call 911 and get this rescue going, had hit her threshold, her fear right at the surface. Heather insisted on getting out of the plane but refused to let anyone touch her until each of the medical crew told her his or her name. Not too unusual to be so freaked. As responders, we understood and, in fact, were there to help her through this crisis, seeking to provide medical care and reassurance.
Besides, all of us had Teflon skin, never taking this stuff personally.
We do this job because we care about people, even at their worst. Professionals in this line of work view each incident with the attitude of “What if this had happened to me or my family,” somehow always having enough patience and professionalism to treat patients with compassion and civility. You don’t get into this line of work without being that way.
Josh Bingaman’s dad was a career EMT and firefighter. When Josh was just starting out as an EMT, his dad said something that has stayed with him to this day. His dad said that, no matter the extent of the injuries, whether huge or of no consequence, this crisis could be the most significant thing that had ever happened to this person in their entire life.
Navigating Heather’s emotions just fine, the medical crew, with her help, freed her from the plane. Supporting her on their shoulders, they got Heather to a stable position, uphill of her parents next to the warming fire.
Our initial triage put Heather or Jayann to be taken off the mountain first. Between Stan, Karen, and Amy, they got Brian’s bleeding under control quickly, and although he was pretty banged up, our real concern was that Heather was bleeding internally, a situation that could turn very serious given our inability to address it at the crash site. If we could get the family to our helicopter, we would be able do a lot more, almost whatever a patient needed.
The sooner we got them off the mountain the better. If they had internal injuries or somehow started experiencing more physical distress, we could only stabilize and treat them to a certain extent. So we focused on keeping them warm and caring for their needs while we mobilized resources.
With injured patients, especially one with possible internal bleeding, time was of the essence. By air, we could get to the hospital in about 20 minutes. By ground, you were looking at at least two hours, probably a lot longer, on top of the time it took to carry them off the mountain.
No. The last thing we wanted was to get stuck down here one minute longer than necessary.
Around 07:00:00 or so, Stan, Dave, and I, seeing firsthand the situation on the ground, put our heads together.
A number of concerns shaped our thinking. The weather was going back and forth, from clouds and snow back to clear skies—something not to be ignored. The last thing we wanted were helicopters stuck up on that saddle, iced up and not doing anybody any good.
Ask any pilot. Everything in aviation is dependent upon weather. Bad visibility, high winds, or snow could trap us on the saddle or delay ground resources from getting to the crash site. If the helicopters were unable to fly due to weather, we had two options. Dig in and wait for the weather to clear or carry the patients out.
Carrying Heather, Jayann, and Brian up the mountain was definitely a worst-case option. Even if we could rally enough manpower, the physical act of carrying them up the mountain, one at a time, would be risky given the slope. We could easily slip and cause further injury. The process would take hours with the hike up the mountain. Not the best plan. We did not have enough people or the right equipment to manually carry them out safely. At the very least, this would necessitate a high angle technical rescue team to set up a rope system to enable us to carry the patients uphill.
What we really needed was a helicopter with a hoist.
Unfortunately, in the EMS community helicopters equipped with hoists were pretty rare. Hoisting was a fairly risky thing to do and required crews with specialized training. Doing it safely wasn’t something easy. You weren’t fishing off the side of a dock.
Stan knew that Life Flight out of Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City had a hoist. He immediately started getting the word out, working that option. But assuming that Life Flight even accepted the request, they were at least two hours away and, if the weather continued to go down, might not get here.
The solution here was obvious. At least to Dave and me. The Idaho National Guard. Our unit. Our guys. We had a hoist on a Blackhawk as well as on a Lakota. Right at Gowen Field, 25 or 30 minutes away. The Guard would get a helicopter going a whole lot faster than a SAR crew out of Salt Lake, one that, given this ever-changing weather, would probably have to turn back.
To do this, State Comm would have to get approval from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC), the agency responsible for Federal SAR missions. The AFRCC, located at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, is assigned to 1st Air Force (Air Forces Northern) and operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The center directly ties into the Federal Aviation Administration’s alerting system and the U.S. Mission Control Center. In the army, this is called “parallel planning,” meaning that instead of one group waiting for another entity to finish doing all their planning steps and then handing it off to the next, the group begins its planning to save time and redundancy. With notification to AFRCC, final approval would be by our State Army Aviations Officer at Gowen.
Even if the mission were approved, the Guard would need to secure a crew certified to do the hoist. I knew the guys in our unit were close to getting that certification but had they actually finished? Were they in town? This was Memorial Day weekend.
Wasting no time, we got word to State Comm via Josh, requesting a high angle rescue team along with a helicopter with a hoist.
That’s when Dave cut to the chase.
Many of us had worked with the National Guard out of Boise for years, growing to know one another fairly well. Well, one of the colonels at Gowen was a personal friend of Dave. If the colonel gave his approval for the hoist, some of the initial elements, such as calling in a crew, could be set in motion while AFRCC went through the formal process.
“Call him,” Dave said to the dispatchers at State Comm, giving them some telephone numbers. “Tell him that I gave you his number and what we need.”
With medical personnel at the crash site, there was little more that Dave and I could do.
As much as I hated going, the clock was ticking. By FAA regulation, we were not allowed to exceed 14 hours on a shift except for reasons beyond our control and I figured that the Feds might not think this mission qualified. I would be timed out at 10:00 a.m., Dave at 11:00 a.m. With the weather still a crapshoot, it made sense to get the pilots up with the helicopters. If the helicopters got snowed in, they could literally be stuck on that ridge for days.
Back up at the saddle, communication with State Comm and ASL dispatch would be better. Dave, having an hour more on his duty day than me, figured it would be a smart idea for him to stay at the LZ (landing zone), coordinating aircraft and ground resources coming in.
From our experience in the military and on the civilian side, the biggest breakdown in aviation SAR usually happens with communications. You tend to get pieces of information, not the whole picture, or misinformation accidentally gets passed on.
It would be good to have Dave stay at the LZ. Otherwise, the rest of this rescue might not go smoothly. At the LZ, if the Guard actually lifted, Dave would be able to inform the incoming Guard guys and everyone else on the up-to-date information on what was going on down below.
I really didn’t want to leave. I wanted to see the Brown family get out of this ravine, but I had to go. I walked over to the fire to say goodbye. They looked up at me, still shivering from the cold, in pain but with gratitude in their faces.
“Good luck. God bless.”
Dave and I began the 50-minute hike up the mountain and found ourselves talking about Jesus. And the amazing way He had saved this family’s life. There was simply no other answer to their surviving than this God who loved them. And us.
Near the top of the trail, Josh Bingaman passed us on his way down, having some news. “ASL 3 with Joe Barnes and the MD 900 are getting ready to come out. Also the high angle rescue guys out of Nampa Fire are coming.”
When you thought about it, the level of experience and skill on that mountain was something else. Stan, Karen, Amy, and Josh epitomized it. They were the kind of folks who gave hurting people the coats off their backs.
When we reached the LZ, Dave got a page on his cell. “Good news. A Lakota from the Guard is in the works.”
Rope rescue team on its way. Guard with a hoist. OCS and local folks coming on four-wheelers. The whole world would be showing up here before too long.
Shaking Dave’s hand, I got back in my Bell 429, glad for the skills and resources that enabled us to find this family. On this deal, everyone had been on the same page. Let’s find these people.
Lifting off the LZ, heading toward home, even over R-3202, seeing a band of wild horses chasing after some wolves, I had such a sense of satisfaction. This had been the most intense, long-lasting, and resource-intensive incident I had ever been involved with as an ASL pilot.
Here and now, I was glad that God had made me a man who wanted to be a pilot. That I loved to fly. And was good at what I did. That I had skills that would help to get Brian, Jayann, and Heather off this mountain.
What a good day. Maybe the sun would come out in full force after all. Time to get home. Yeah. Send in the cavalry.