The Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs issued the following news release:
During a night vision goggle (NVG) training flight Oct. 20 the Alaska Army National Guard's 1-207th Aviation Regiment received an unexpected call from the Palmer Fire Department.
"We received a call from the Palmer Fire Department asking if we had any aircraft out flying," said Spc. Heidi Carbaugh, Army Aviation Support Facility (AASF), flight operations specialist. "We happened to have an aircraft on an NVG training flight and the fire department asked if they could fly over the Jim Creek area to check out the last known location of a missing hunter."
Due to the nature of the situation, already dark and getting colder, Palmer Fire Dispatch provided AASF flight operations with an approximate location to send the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and Carbaugh notified the Army Aviation Support Facility commander of the situation.
"The pilots were relayed the information and proceeded to fly over the position. Using a standard search flight pattern they were able to find the lost hunter in an area of braided river and sand bars unreachable by ground search and rescue," Carbaugh explained.
The helicopter landed and the quickly loaded the hunter onto the aircraft so that they could move him to where the ground-search party was located.
"He was cold, shivering and exhausted when we got to him, but otherwise ambulatory," said Maj. James Siedenburg, 1-207th Aviation Regiment, UH-60 Black Hawk pilot. "He is lucky that our air crew had been on a training mission nearby, otherwise who knows how long it would have taken to find him or how long he would have survived in those conditions without proper survival gear."
By: Staff Sgt. Karima Turner
Copyright Targeted News Services
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