Rescue

[Flying Pig]

Pardon my shameless arrogant posting of my flying videos   There is a one swear word at the very start of video 4 FYI  Happened last week. 

Anyway.  Lost hiker, unfamiliar with the area fell and broke his leg.  His friend was able to climb the mountain and get a cell signal and gave dispatch landmarks to help us locate where they were.  His friend had a tib/fib break.  His leg was splinted and set prior to him being lifted.  Although the video is a little deceiving.  It was actually about a 30ft. vertical drop to the rocks and then a very steep decent to where the victim was.  It would have taken a technical rope rescue and a pully system to get a stretcher up.  It was getting dark fast and the ambulance was still about 1.5hrs away.  We do a lot of short haul when we do rescues, so this wasnt something we just threw together.  We have better ways, bowman bag with a backboard, "Screamer Suit", etc, but with time of day, fuel, distance from civilization, my partner and my partner and I determined we needed to get it done along with a USFS medic and a Deputy Medic who was able to set and splint his leg prior to the lift. 

Video 1
Upper Kings River Helicopter Rescue

Video 2
Upper Kings River Helicopter rescue 2

Video 3
Upper Kings river helicopter rescue 3

Video 4
Upper kings river helicopter rescue 4

[bosshawk]

Rob: Great job: most of the people on this site have no idea how difficult it is to keep a helo almost motionless, especially with the wind that I heard you mention once.  That climber/hiker is a lucky guy.  Of course, nobody commented on your videos: no CAP ground team involved, so it had to be a snap.  Our local SAR team gets involved in this stuff all the time.

[Flying Pig]

We've had many discussion on here about working with helicopters, CAP using helicopters, heck, even CAP getting their OWN helicopters.   Thought it might make for some discussion relevant to ES. 

[bosshawk]

Rob: you didn't work cadets or uniforms into the rescue.  Either of those would have gotten pages of responses.  Also, no mention of CAP regulations.

[PA Guy]

I enjoyed seeing the videos.  I have experienced law enforcement aviation in their SAR role and law enforcement role and have always been impressed with what they can do.  Most of my experience was in San Bernardino County and the sheriff's aviation.

At a minimum it seems that ground teams should have formalized training in how to work with rotary winged aircraft.  This is especially true for GTs in CA with its widespread use of rotary wing by law enforcement and other agencies.

[A.Member]

Pfft....it was just a broken leg.   Should've told him to suck it up and get his sorry butt back up to the road or the coyotes will have him for dinner.

On a somewhat related note, what tools/technology does your department use to conduct air searches (missing person/thing)?  I assume you have a FLIR unit on your helo (although I didn't notice one in the video).  If so, what is it's field of vision and how useful do you find it in a missing persons search?

[Luis R. Ramos]

There are some tasks requiring knowledge of working with helos. These are I seem to remember only at the Ground Team level. I think it would be a good idea of having more tasks for both GTM1 and GTL on working with these special acft.

Thank you for both a job well done and for posting them.

Flyer

[SJFedor]

Rob, if you ever get away from flying LE, and start flying air medical, let me know. I'll come be your flight medic any day.