Mission 83 will turn out to be epic for a couple of reasons – long hikes and a Blackhawk helicopter rescue! The mission starts with a text from our Team Leader at 02:07 hours on September 8th 2022. Two Brigade ground pounders head out to incident base at Cabresto Lake outside of Questa. A third Brigade member will join the effort a few hours later as Incident Commander.
We learn a 69 year old gentleman has gotten off trail and is about 500 feet down a steep scree slope and unable to climb back up. We know where he is from coordinates gathered from his cell phone because he was able to call his son and ask for help. We also learn the subject is 7.5 miles into the wilderness at about 12,000 feet!
A Taos Search and Rescue (TSAR) member and the subjects son join forces with the Brigade to become team one. Our mission is to reach the subject as soon as possible, assess the situation and hopefully with some food, water and a helping hand escort our subject out. A four hour hike later finds us on the ridge above where the subject is. The slope is at least 45 degrees and consists mainly of scree. We decide that the TSAR member, a paramedic, and our subjects son (Team One Bravo) will descend the slope while the two Brigade members (Team One Alpha) remain on the ridge to provide a radio relay and standby in case additional help is needed.
Turns out the radio relay job is critical as once team bravo descends the slope they are no longer able to communicate with incident base directly and the Civil Air Patrol plane flying high and acting as a radio relay needs to return to base for fuel. As you can see in the picture to the left the radio relay job is tough duty.
Our TSAR member quickly determines our subject is not going to be able to make it out on his own and we suggest a helicopter. We soon learn a Santa Fe National Guard helicopter will launch and head our way to either land or lift the subject with a hoist. It takes the helicopter two tries with a return to base to refuel and reconfigure the aircraft to successfully extract our subject. The video to the left summarizes the epic rescue!
After the helicopter extracts our subject, his son and the TSAR member the two Brigade members hike the seven and half miles back to incident base in the dark. As I’ve said before I love hiking at night and we had an almost full moon to accompany us. Our incident commander even has a hot meal ready for us when we reach IB close to midnight.