Night Rescue

Mt. Tallac near Lake Tahoe - photo by JoAnn Sturman

W.R. Priskna
fliesinyoureyes.com

When Bob and I arrived in Arizona in 1973, it was our first assignment after graduating from helicopter flight training. Most of the sergeants in our new unit were Vietnam War veterans with years of helicopter experience, while none of us junior officers had been stationed outside the United States. A new lieutenant was wise to be humble, ask plenty of questions, and leave General Patton's leadership style to those who did not want to grow old to see their children.

Sergeant Otto was raised in the deep Mississippi back country. A large, powerfully built man with jet black hair combed straight back and loaded with Brill Cream, he was likely to be found with a Chesterfield hanging out the corner of his mouth. Otto was a staff sergeant but with his experience should have been two or three grades higher. Maybe he was involved in one too many fights at the NCO club or while enjoying a bottle of whiskey was insubordinate to an officer. We never knew. He called everybody but the senior officers “boy” and even then a begrudging “ sir” came out the side of his mouth. He was, however, a master crew chief who had served three tours in Vietnam as a Huey door gunner. If you were an inexperienced pilot or he considered you a weak dick, he would not fly with you on a dangerous mission. He had survived three years of intense combat with the enemy shooting at him daily and didn't want some rookie pilot to do something the Viet Cong couldn't.

As our first year in the unit passed, we got to know Otto and the other enlisted men. We flew together on routine training and operations fights and on Friday afternoons played horseshoes and drank a lot of beer. Every so often I would run into Otto while I was jogging around the base.
“Hey, Priskna! Why do you run so much?”
“Trying to keep in shape, Otto.”
“You don't see me runnin'. I don't run from nobody.”
“You don't have to, Otto. For me running is not a bad option if matters get out of hand.”

During the second summer after being assigned to the unit, Bob and I were on standby for weekend rescues. It was a July evening, when we received an urgent call to evacuate a “hiker” who had fallen 75 feet off the top of Tanque Verde Falls, a mecca for the area's free spirits. Earlier that day the victim and her boyfriend were making love at the precipice of the waterfall and lost their balance. When impacting the rocks at the bottom of the falls, she fell on top of her friend. He was killed instantly, while she sustained critical injuries. Due to the remote area and the nature of her injuries, a helicopter recovery was the only practical option.

As Bob and I were driving to helicopter operations, we agreed this would be a difficult mission. We had flown several rescues in the previous year, but never under these conditions. As soon as we entered the hanger, we discovered Sgt. Otto and Sgt. Benjamin, the hoist operator, were assigned to rescue duty that night. Otto put his arms around our shoulders and drawled, “Boys, we're gunna get it done. Benjamin and me are glad you're the ones flyin' tonight.”

We departed the air base after sunset for the fifteen minute flight to the falls at the base of the Santa Catalina and Rincon Mountains. The temperature was still over 100 degrees, and there was a strong wind blowing through the canyon. We flew fifty to a hundred feet above the ground through the narrow, twisting canyon in total darkness. Once we reached the waterfall, our power reserve was limited due to the altitude, temperature, wind currents, and aircraft weight. The Pima County Search and Rescue Department, who arrived at the scene earlier that evening, marked the area with signal flares. Due to the confines of the canyon and the huge boulders strewn around the accident site, there was no place to land. The helicopter did not have enough power for a hoist rescue from an unaided hover.

When landing a Huey helicopter vertically from a hover, the pilot can see horizontally from the nine to three o'clock position and the ground in front of him through a small transparent plastic bubble between his feet. Yet despite the good forward visibility, the pilot is unable to see directly above or below the helicopter or from the three to nine o'clock positions. The primary concern is the pilot cannot see the tail rotor or most of the main rotor when attempting to land in perilous terrain. To achieve a better view the copilot must stick his head out of the window in the door by his side, and the crew chiefs in the rear passenger compartment must hang outside the side doors to make sure the rotors do not strike an object. If they do, a sudden crash is assured. Team work, good communications, and steady nerves are essential.

Using the helicopter search light we spotted a rock large and flat enough to support one of the helicopter skids. While descending a hundred feet vertically, Otto and Benjamin hung outside the rear doors and radioed instructions to the cockpit. We slowly brought the chopper down and balanced one skid on the boulder. This reduced the helicopter's power requirement and made a hoist attempt possible. Otto and Benjamin deployed the hoist and lifted the stretcher from the ground twenty feet to the level of the passenger door. They pulled the stretcher aboard and signaled all clear. It was impossible to turn around and fly back down the canyon, so we chose a full power vertical takeoff. The Huey shuttered and rose foot by foot until it hovered two hundred feet in the air. The altitude provided enough space to avoid the canyon walls and allowed us to spin the aircraft 180 degrees and face down the canyon. We pushed the cyclic forward and gained airspeed. Within a few minutes we delivered the hiker to the helipad at the local medical center.

It was an exhilarating feeling when the four of us landed at the base. When we stood together with our arms around each other's shoulders, we realized it was times like these that made up for all the rigmarole and foolish directives from personnel who flew desks rather than helicopters. Despite the danger we had saved a life. As a bonus Bob and I received an added compliment – from that time on there would be no question Otto would fly with us on any mission.

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