10:03:00
Brad Warr
Captain, Nampa Fire Department
I HAD BEEN ON five or six plane crashes in my career, nothing too bad, but given where this one was located, it was unique. After Murphy, take that right turn off of Highway 78, and the world becomes a much wilder place.
At the wheel, Flavel maneuvered Rescue One up the gravel, rut-filled Silver City Road heading toward the staging area. Halfway there, we spotted dust rising behind us as Malott and Strosnider caught up to our convoy. Four vehicles and nine personnel strong, we pulled into the staging area, still below the snowline but under a dark, cloudy sky.
Waiting were two OCS deputies along with other backcountry residents, posse members who, hearing about the crash via calls from neighbors or from the sheriff’s office, came equipped with all-terrain vehicles and utility vehicles. People like longtime resident Paul Nettleton and his son, Chad. Retired firefighter Jim Hyslop, who ran the all-volunteer Silver City Fire Department. And Fred Chadwick, a deputy posse member who had been out for hours searching for the plane.
Then you had us. Nampa Fire Department. The guys from down the hill who had the highest level of technical rescue training.
Basic rule of operation was that you defer to the agency with jurisdiction—in this case, the Owyhee County Sheriff. I shook the hand of one of the deputies, introduced myself, and asked, “Who is running this from your side?” After a few minutes of conversation, it was clear that OCS was giving Nampa Fire room to run with the ground operation. With that, as everyone else introduced themselves, Flavel, Cade, and I went off to the side.
“One of us is going to run the rescue side of this,” I said thinking that either Flavel or Cade would fit the bill nicely. The three of us, along with one other firefighter, ran Nampa’s technical rescue department. Given that we ran emergency incidents every day, one of us needed to step up to run this ground operation.
“Who is it going to be?”
Smiling, they pointed at me. There was a chance that one of us might have to go over an edge and do some high angle work. Both Flavel and Cade wanted to be that guy. So did I. But you couldn’t rappel down a canyon if you were the operations team leader.
Unfortunately, I had only one finger to point back with.
Gathering everyone, I introduced myself. “My name is Captain Brad Warr from Nampa Fire, and I am running the ground operation.” With everyone providing whatever information they had, we laid out maps on the hood of a vehicle.
Information that you have at the start of an incident is not always accurate for a lot of reasons. It might be from someone’s perspective, seeing what happened for the first time or possibly said in panic. Until you actually get to a location, you operate knowing that you don’t have the complete picture. That’s okay. Happens all the time. The key to running an emergency response is how well you react to new information coming at you.
Although OCS deputies and residents had a good idea where that crash site was located, our immediate problem was finding a trail to get us there. Talking with OCS deputies and posse members, a plan emerged.
First, in our vehicles, we would go as far as we could through the snow and rocky trail up War Eagle Mountain. When we could go no further, we would establish a forward operating base, getting personnel and gear as close in as possible. There, we would send in an advance crew on ATVs who, after accessing the crash site, would determine how much equipment would be needed to evacuate patients. They would relay that information back to the forward operating base where Captain Cade would be coordinating incoming personnel and equipment.
Instead of committing all resources to one plan (only to find out that it might not work) this process allowed us to get to the crash site, and if we needed additional equipment or manpower, Cade could adjust accordingly, the second team bringing in whatever was needed.
Our planning had to be fluid and adaptable to whatever we might encounter, including communications that came in bits and pieces, secondhand or thirdhand information: “…he told this guy who told that guy who told…” because of the terrain and different bandwidths.
Nampa Fire was not able to talk directly to OCS or those at the crash site. Our communications had to be relayed through State Comm. In addition, Air St. Luke’s personnel, who had been out all night searching, were conserving battery power on their radios, checking in at 15-minute intervals.
Still, everyone had one goal in mind. There was no tension or turf war, only willing attitudes and the spirit of “Let’s get these people off the mountain.” Even though Nampa Fire had chiefs on scene, they were right there with everyone else, saying, “Just tell me what you need from us.”
“I know the way in there,” Paul Nettleton said, sitting in his well-used ATV.
This chiseled Owyhee County cattleman had lived his entire life in these mountains. I had no doubt that he did know the way in.
Paul’s great grandfather, Matthew Joyce, arrived in Silver City, then called Ruby City, with his family around the Civil War, a time when silver had been discovered on War Eagle Mountain. With hordes of miners rushing into the area, Joyce intended to sell food, such as meat and dairy, to the miners. He and his family squatted in a meadow three miles out of town, but after their first winter in the mountains, an eye-opener for the newcomer, he realized, “This is no place to winter with cows.”
Next year, he found a place at a lower elevation, eventually establishing himself on a spot he called Joyce Ridge Ranch. In the summer he would get his cattle up into the mountains and then bring them back down in winter. Generations later, Paul and his son, Chad, were still working the ranch.
Paul was legend here. He had ridden this country since childhood and knew it like the back of his hand.
Weather closing in, we would use ATVs, something standard for an Owyhee County search. Whenever OCS put out a call regarding a missing hunter, hiker, or motorcyclist, residents here trailer up their ATVs, always prepared with cold-weather gear, most of them having a good idea which direction to head.
Paul, who got called by a neighbor around 7:00 a.m., heard at the staging area that the plane had been flying from Rome, Oregon, toward Mountain Home. He figured out quickly which mountain ravine the plane had gone down in. “I know where they are,” he told me. “That is the head of Thunder Creek. Now that’s not the name you will find it called on the maps, but that is what the old buckaroos have called it for years. Lightning Creek is the next one over. I have been up there in a few of those thunderstorms.”
He was as sure as a man can be. “Look. I have ridden that country since I was a kid. That wreck is on the other side of that saddle.” I got on his ATV, believing the man.
We took off, third in line of the convoy consisting of Flavel and two personnel from Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue, along with Hardy and Fuhriman, who had strapped gear, including extra ropes and our ALS medical kit, down into a SKED stretcher and Stokes basket, lashing both to the backs of their ATV-like toboggans.
“You know, around Memorial Day weekend,” Paul remarked, “you normally can’t get this far up in the mountain because of snowdrifts. It’s fortunate that we had a light snow year this year.”
A normal winter, one that had seen average snowfall, and we would have been significantly hampered in reaching the crash site.
The posse navigated their ATVs to the top of War Eagle Mountain near a place called the Count’s Cabin. Then, chalk it up to the snow, blowing conditions, and limited visibility, the convoy, like a Slinky, got so spread apart that drivers lost sight of the ATVs ahead and ended up taking different spur roads throughout the terrain.
Some four-wheelers were running so close to the mountain’s edge that a few of our guys were thinking, “Okay, let’s not make this our own rescue scene.”
Hardy was on a two-seater “mule,” sitting next to the driver with a bunch of our gear behind him. Side-hilling deep in snow on a steep slope, Hardy was hanging way off to the side, saying to himself, “I have seen this kind of accident report, and it is about to become ours.”
“How you doin’?” the backcountry driver shouted above the noise of the ATV.
“Fine,” Hardy shouted back.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Like if this baby went over, he was prepared to jump.
At the back of the pack, Paul said to me. “They are going the wrong way.”
“If you know where you are going, let’s go there.”
“There is a trail down here. We can use it to get a lot closer to the crash.”
Turning on a dime, Paul went off the trail and straight down at a steep slope covered in eight inches of snow. Leaning back as far as I could, I might have looked calm but I was thinking, “Okay. We’re about to go head over heels.”
Still, Paul got us down without a hitch to the lower part of the trail. Sure enough. He was 100 percent right. In three-quarters of a mile, I saw a familiar face waiting. Josh Bingaman, paramedic with Air St. Luke’s. We used to be neighbors. Small world.
“Hey! I know you.”
“How you been?” I said, shaking his hand.
“Great.”
“So where is this plane crash?”
“Down the slope in that group of trees.”
Using Josh’s radio, I radioed State Comm, asking them to alert ground crews to use the lower trail.
It was as far as Paul could take me. The rest of the way down was loose shale covered in snow. Thanking him, I made my way to the crash site with Josh.
There she was. That little yellow-and-white Cessna was still intact. It hit the trees, sheering part of one wing, but landed uphill in a patch of open space. Fortunately, snow had saturated the ground, reducing the fire potential. With ASL coordinating patient care, I assessed what we would need to do to evacuate the patients.
Pretty straightforward and easy. No cliffs to go over. Sorry, Jerry and Chris.
The 60-degree slope would get muddy fast. Assuming the National Guard helicopter got cleared to do the mission, one possible location to do the hoists was about 50 yards away from the crash site, up and across a rocky slope, clear of trees.
That Cessna would need to be secured. Rotor wash from a helicopter might dislodge it. Flavel could secure it fast and Rosti would be the guy to set loose on the plane itself. He would know exactly how to turn off the ELT and the battery as well as where to check for fire hazard with any remaining fuel.
Simple rope system. Simple patient packaging. Stuff we teach our guys early in their careers. The only minor hurdle with this rescue had been the logistics of getting down here.
Flavel had made a great call in Murphy. Glad we hadn’t sat on our hands back there.
I checked my watch. Nearing 10:30 a.m.
Voices over the radio were increasingly upbeat. The National Guard was on its way. Great news because it put to rest the idea of us carrying them out. The operation, multiple agencies strong, was going smoothly. Weather improving, the mountainside down from the LZ was dotted with rescuers dressed in Nampa FD yellow, IMSARU orange, and ASL blue, along with local residents in multicolored winter gear. A rough head count put us easily over 30 people.
Among these responders were volunteers from Boise’s Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue Unit (IMSARU). They are individuals from the community who, for the purpose of saving lives, invest their own money and time to become highly adept in search and rescue. Today, they had again shown themselves to be enthusiastic and skilled team players willing to do whatever was necessary. Owen Miller, their field leader, and Mike Johnson, both professional and knowledgeable, had come in as part of the advance team.
Started in the 1960s, IMSARU was created in response to the community’s need for specialized teams equipped and trained in search and rescue. Traditional first responders, such as the Idaho State Police and county sheriff departments, did not have the training, equipment, or manpower to handle search and rescue on their own.
Out of shared vision for helping people and a love for rescue, original IMSARU volunteers pulled their collective survival and rescue skills together, got training, obtained equipment, created a logo, and established a base of operations. To raise funds, in August 1965 the group held their first “corn booth” at the West Idaho Fair, selling “hot, buttered ears of corn,” a tradition that continues to this day
A number of IMSARU members have their EMT certification along with specialized skills in rope rescue, avalanche search, swift water rescue, man tracking, and canine handling. They are an amazingly inclusive nonprofit organization. You don’t have to be an expert to join along in the fun. Male or female, old or young, everyone is welcome to become a member. The least skilled person can play a role. No surprise that 50 years in operation, IMSARU has earned the respect of first responders and law enforcement agencies throughout Idaho.
It’s rare that Nampa Fire and IMSARU work together. IMSARU tends to interact with smaller agencies that don’t have rescue personnel or equipment, and because Nampa Fire is able to provide for itself, IMSARU rarely gets called into our district. The only time we interact is when one agency calls both of us.
Getting called out by State Comm around 7:00 a.m., they had rolled fast. Despite a flat tire outside of Murphy, team members continued to show up to help throughout the morning with posse members shuttling them to the crash site. Seeing the wreckage and the terrain, they, like the rest of us, were surprised that we had any survivors.
It hadn’t taken long before the ground operation was set to roll. A tension single rope system had been built and attached to the downed aircraft to keep it from going anywhere. We also had a simple 2:1 mechanical advantage system with half-inch static kernmantle rope anchored from a tree 20 yards up the hill from the patients, a system that we would attach to the SKEDs.
When I arrived at the crash site, I introduced myself to Heather, Jayann, and Brian. They were pretty banged up, wrapped up in space blankets, shivering next to the warming fire. Brian, with a horseshoe gash around his head, blood clotted black down his face, looked like someone had poured tar over him. As he thanked me for coming, I thought, “Well, good, he is talking to me.”
I pulled Josh aside. “Give me a priority list on who needs to fly first.”
The choice was between Heather and Jayann. It was obvious that Brian would go last because his injuries appeared structural—possible broken bones and ribs. Unlike the women, he was not manifesting signs of internal injuries. Jayann, though, had suffered a head injury. Heather had a possible pelvic fracture.
Hearing me talk to Josh, Brian jumped in. “I can definitely go last. Get my girls off of the mountain first.”
That’s when Josh said to me, off to the side, “He’s a firefighter. A captain out of California.” Earlier in the rescue, apparently someone had asked Heather, “So what do you do for a living?”
“Great. What does your mom do?”
“She’s a dental hygienist.”
“Really? That’s great. What does your dad do?”
“Well, he’s a firefighter, a captain for one department and a deputy chief for another.”
A captain and deputy chief no less. The son-of-a-gun hadn’t told anyone that he was a firefighter.
Now, we don’t ever try to make light of an emergency, but knowing that Brian was a firefighter and that he had not told us was a horse of a different color. You bet I went up to him, seeing clearly in those blood-crusted eyes that he knew the cat was out of the bag.
“I hear you are a fireman,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Hmm. That you’re a captain?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
The guy had got a banged-up head. His plane was a complete wreck, 30 feet away in a pile.
So I said, in a fireman’s way, “They don’t let you drive the fire engine. Who told you that you could fly the plane?”
There, in that blood-covered face, a smile.
Brian knew exactly what I meant. Today he was having the worst day of his life while his fellow firefighters were having one of their best.
All you had to do was look around this crash site. Flashes of smiles here and there, barely restrained, every one of us feeling the same thing. “This is so awesome. I can’t believe that I get to do this for a living.”
The possible pelvic injury put Heather at the top of the list. In addition, everyone agreed that, emotionally, she needed to get off the mountain first. She was scared, uncomfortable, hurting, and cold, and her anxiety was spiraling pretty high as responders worked, preparing her for the hoist.
For hours now, she had been lying on the ground in the cold, her adrenaline worn down and pain coming on strong. “What is taking them so long? What is taking so long for them to get us off the mountain?” she kept asking, eventually resorting to screaming.
She was also not doing well with people she didn’t know. As more rescuers arrived at the crash site, she got increasingly upset, demanding, “Who are you? Get away. Don’t touch me. I don’t know who you are. I want to know your name before you touch me.” That included the medical personnel trying to get an IV line into her. On the verge of losing control, she shouted, “No! I don’t want you to do this.”
So the next face she saw was mine.
Provide physical comfort. Listen. Talk. Help the patient through this horrible experience. Have compassion. Yes, sometimes these simple actions, done one-on-one with those in pain and in crisis, are the most important things we do as firefighters. Perhaps it is what we do best.
I got right on the ground, face-to-face with Heather. With a big, confident smile, I introduced myself and had her focus on me. My goal was to build confidence, increase trust, and calm her down, something fundamental in EMS patient care. You stay with a patient in this condition the entire way, allowing him or her to focus on one person.
Someone had given her a Dallas Cowboy knit hat to keep her head warm. Being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I said, “Hey, is that your hat?”
“No,” she said, still on the edge. “It’s not mine, but that’s my team.”
I immediately started giving her a hard time about her team, kidding her about “her guys.” I wanted to distract Heather, engage her in conversation and say anything that would help her take her mind off her bad situation. I kept teasing Heather about the Dallas Cowboy hat with the intent of keeping her calm and listening to me.
When someone came up to us, I found out his or her name, making sure Heather knew who they were and what they were doing. Given what she had gone through, I actually thought Heather was doing pretty well. Some of the guys, hearing Heather scream, asked me later, “Oh, man. She must have been hurting,” and “What were you doing to her? Cutting her leg off?”
Still, every first responder knows full well that patients have different pain tolerances. There is simply the point where patients go over the edge, and Heather was at that point. It would be unusual not to be emotional or scared. Teasing, telling her about what was happening, and giving her the names of individuals touching her, provided comfort, relief, and reassurance to a vulnerable person in need.
Heather would soon be out of here. She was not happy to hear she was going first, saying, “Please don’t take me first. I don’t need to go first. Take my mom. Please take my mom,” but Heather needed to get off this mountain to the hospital, away from what had just happened to her.
Sorry, Dallas Cowboys fan, you don’t have a choice in this one.
11:44 A.M.
After one of those wild ATV rides, two of the National Guard made their way down to the crash site. Military flight gear. Helmets. Coming down through the trees with Jake Fuhriman. Carrying two SKEDs, gear, and a medical bag.
Staff Sergeant Robert Toronto, the flight medic, looked a little surprised seeing the number of responders already at the crash site. Nampa Fire. Plenty of IMSARU. ASL medics and nurses. Owyhee County posse and residents hovering with ATVs. He had probably anticipated doing patient care on his own, but, good news, patient care was done. We also had a system in place to take patients up the hill to a hoist location. Plenty of volunteers to move them.
The crash site was calm. No stress. Just three people waiting for a ride.
As Staff Sergeant Al Colson surveyed possible hoist locations, Robert spoke with us and ASL medical personnel about which patient was going first, second, and third. Time approaching for the hoist, I said to Flavel, “Hey, you are in charge of patient packaging.” Patient packaging was one of our bread-and-butter skills as firefighters, something we train to do from the very start of our careers.
A SKED is a flexible litter designed to wrap around a patient, much like you would swaddle a baby in cloth. The key to packaging a patient about to be hoisted is to make sure they are positioned so that the balance is right, meaning that their feet are not down too far nor is their head lower than their feet, which would expose the patient to a lot more risk.
Heather was scared, on the verge of being combative and screaming a lot, but it didn’t faze anyone on scene. Soon she was wedged tight in the SKED, arms along her side, blankets over her, strapped down solid, not going anywhere. Cade, Goodwin, and a couple of the IMSARU and posse guys carried Heather up the hill, using the rope system to a game trail and then crossing another 30 or 40 yards to the hoist area.
Quickly, the Guard’s helicopter was hovering overhead. As Robert, Al, Jake Gillis from IMSARU, and I covered Heather from the rotor wash, the pilot hovered in position while the crew chief ran the cable down.
Down on my knees, shielding Heather, I continued to hammer her about the Cowboys, anything to keep her mind off of the fact that she was about to be lifted a couple of hundred feet in the air and then swiveled into a loud military helicopter. As Robert and Al connected the hoist line, Heather lost control, desperately not wanting to go, pleading, “Can’t you just carry me up?”
Tied on to the hoist, rotor wash beating down, this was it. Heather was about to be out of here.
“Enjoy the ride” were the last words I said.
She screamed.
Poor girl. It wouldn’t be long. In minutes, she would be on her way to the landing zone where the waiting ASL helicopter would transport her to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise.
Left to right: Darrel Rosti, Brad Warr, Ted Hardy, Jerry Flavel, Chris Cade, Doug Strosnider, Jake Fuhriman and Dale Goodwin
Not pictured: Chief Karl Malott, Battalion Chief Terry Leighton
Back Row: Left to Right Jamie Simpson, Mike Johnson, Danny Cone, Francisco Castellon, Kris Scovel and Everett Wood
Front Row: Left to Right Alisa Rettschlag, Charlotte Gunn, Tom Wheless and Dan Scovel
Not pictured: Brad Acker, Judd Ballard, Jake Gillis, Steve Huffman, Linda Kearney, Tom Kearney, Owen Miller, Gregg Rettschlag and Mark Westerdoll