The Successful Unsuccessful Search and Rescue Mission

Near Machu Pichu - photo by JoAnn Sturman

By Steven R. Oberst

For a helicopter pilot, nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like a search and rescue mission. As an Air Force helicopter pilot stationed at a northern plains missile base, rescue missions were not every day events. In our unit, there was always a rescue crew on standby. This duty rotated among the pilots, so if a request came for a helicopter to participate in some type of rescue mission, the standby crew was put into action. Fortunately, I was luckier than the average pilot in our unit, so I seemed to be on standby when a lot of the best missions occurred. I even got the honor of piloting a chopper hauling a load of “emergency” hay to cattle stranded after a blizzard on the local Indian reservation. Sometimes we even rescued people.

The summer of 1978 was unusually hot and was followed by a really nasty winter. On that Labor Day Monday the temperature reached 101 degrees. Two days later a surprise cold front swept through from Canada and temperatures dropped below freezing. The following Thursday a call came in about a lost hiker in the Black Hills. The missing hiker was last seen on Monday. I was on the standby crew that day along with co-pilot Lt. Kris Polly and two maintenance crew members, SSgt Luther Topper and Airman Dick Preen, who served as search and rescue spotters for the mission. Normally our helicopter call sign was “Bever” plus the last two digits of the tail number, but for a rescue mission the call sign became “Rescue”. Bever 72 became Rescue 72 for this mission.

Rescue 72 immediately was dispatched to the local airport and coordinated search activities with the local Civil Air Patrol (CAP). The CAP already had a ground search unit on the way to the hiker’s last known position. The family of the hiker had provided information about his intended destination, a state park campground next to a lake, where his older brother had pre-arranged to meet him on Wednesday.

The lost hiker, Teddy Cleaver, was a student at the local college and planned one last hiking trip before school started later that month. Teddy was described as being tall (6’4”), thin, age 22, with shoulder length brown hair and wearing old army fatigues. It amazes me how so many people set off on solo adventures in wilderness or backcountry areas. Then we hear about these macho men or women on the evening news. Even Daniel Boone took Ed Ames along with him on his explorations of the American frontier.

We planned to use the helicopter to search for the hiker by starting at the campground and working our way north towards the hiker’s starting point. There was no clear route of travel for the hiker since there were no trails between his starting point and destination. The woods in this section of the Black Hills were dense, but there were a number of open areas as well as old logging or mining roads.

I elected to conduct a “creeping line search”. Basically, we drew a line on a National Forest map between the starting point and the campground. From the campground we flew back and forth about a mile on either side of this line visually searching from both sides of the helicopter as we gradually worked our way north. If we reached the starting point without finding the hiker, we would refuel and try a different strategy.

Thirty minutes into the search SSgt Topper reported a sighting at our 3 o’clock. Turning the helicopter to the right I saw a person walking in the middle of a large clearing. As we approached the clearing for a better look, the person started running in the opposite direction. We flew over him, and the spotters both confirmed seeing a tall male with long brown hair and wearing army fatigues.

“This must be our guy,” I thought, “but why is he running away?” I turned the helicopter around and headed back towards him, whereupon he turned and ran back the other way. “How strange is this?” I asked the crew. Once again I turned back toward the clearing. This time the guy just stopped and raised his arms like a customer in a bank a hold-up.

I radioed our helicopter operations dispatcher and informed him we had a possible sighting and would land to check it out. We landed in the middle of the clearing, and I asked Lt. Polly and SSgt Topper to question the hiker and determine his condition. The whole time, this man remained motionless and kept his arms raised above his head.

“Hey!” Kris said as he approached, “You can put your hands down, we’re the good guys. Are you Teddy?” The guy nodded and put his hands down but never said a word. He had no apparent injuries, but looked like he had been through a few tough days. “How are you doing?” Kris asked. The guy did not respond and acted like he was in shock, but when offered some water, he eagerly gulped it down.

“Where is your backpack?” Luther asked. Again there was no response, as Lt. Polly and SSgt Topper helped him to the helicopter. He looked more like a scared rabbit than a lost hiker, who had just been found by air rescue.

Once he was secured in the back of the helicopter, he quickly wolfed down a Mr. Goodbar and pack of Twinkies. While on the ground we were out of radio contact, so I did a normal takeoff and climbed to gain some altitude.

“Helicopter Operations, this is Rescue 72.”
“Go ahead Rescue 72.”
“Roger. Rescue 72 has a person on the helicopter who matches the missing hiker’s description; however, he is non-responsive.”
“Copy that, Rescue 72. Is he unconscious?”
“Negative. He is conscious, but seems to be in shock.”
“Roger, Rescue 72. Return to the base and we will alert the Sheriff’s office and the CAP.”
“Roger that. Rescue 72 returning to base. ETA is 40 minutes.”

When we landed at the helipad there was an ambulance waiting to take our passenger to the local hospital for a medical evaluation. The flight crew reported to operations for debriefing. There were high fives all around, and we fully expected to get credit for one official “Save” from Rescue Headquarters.

When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the rescue story took an unexpected turn. Wally, Teddy’s brother, was waiting at the hospital to greet him. As the stretcher rolled past Wally and into the emergency room, Wally yelled, “Hey, that’s not Teddy! This guy is not my brother! What’s going on here?”

Later that day, the Sheriff notified us that the rescued hiker was actually a fugitive who was wanted in four states for a variety of thefts and break-ins. He had stolen a car and eluded police in a chase into the Black Hills, but the stolen car ran out of gas. He abandoned it and had been walking for two days when we stumbled upon him. Apparently he thought we were the police, so he put his hands up to surrender. Because we did not read him his Miranda rights when we greeted him, he decided to say nothing. Needless to say, the Sheriff did Mirandize him at the hospital and took him to jail. Fortunately, there was no violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, since we did not use force and were under the assumption we were saving a lost hiker. Needless to say, we were not awarded a “Save” for inadvertently bringing a criminal to justice.

The next day, the real lost hiker, Teddy Cleaver, walked into a U.S. Forest Ranger Station, hungry but in good condition. The station was 15 miles off his course, so we never would have found him using our brilliantly conceived creeping line search pattern. No doubt, this was the most successful unsuccessful search and rescue mission of my career, but it resulted in a Leave it to Bever Axiom: When you think you’ve found a lost hiker, he will probably not be the guy raising his hands above his head.

At my farewell party the next year, I was presented with Kris’ large cartoon drawing with me. In the center I’m flying a little helicopter surrounded by memorable events from my nearly five years in the unit. These included five cows munching on a bale of hay and a long haired man with his hands in the air. It also showed a wild turkey, Devil’s Tower, and a naked woman, but these are stories for another day.