E96 North Bend High Altitude Rescue

[00:00:12] Speaker A: There it is, man. [00:00:13] Speaker B: There it is. [00:00:13] Speaker A: The anthem. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Wow. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Now when you hear that song, you get pumped. [00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm pumped right now, dude. [00:00:18] Speaker A: I was walking to the grocery store the other day, and I heard that come on, and I was like, oh, man. And I started craving beer. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Wait, like, walking down the grocery store aisles, they played it. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Gosh, it was a good one. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Remember back in the nineties? It was all like, Celine Dione. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it was great. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Now it's like nineties bangers. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Played in the grocery store. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Gets me pumped up. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:36] Speaker A: And then I buy too much beer. [00:00:38] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Dangerous combo beer and lots of ice. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Dude, I am pumped. This just star case palooza right now on this podcast, and it's gonna be a good one. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah. North Bend. We're going all the way up to the Pacific northwest. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Yep. This could be a really good one. I'm excited about this one, dude. [00:00:56] Speaker B: This is a vibe right now. So we have. We have newer mic booms stands, the microphones themselves. We have this neat little device called a cloud lifter. It's supposed to. Supposed to, like, drown out our heavy breathing and other weird noises that we make. So, like, with all that, man, hopefully we can get some stories rolling. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Nobody's gonna know any difference. It's gonna sound the same. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Can't wait until we get Sam Hafensteiner back on this mic, dude. He's gonna be just. [00:01:24] Speaker A: He's gonna like the equipment. [00:01:25] Speaker B: He's so good. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Somewhere in Europe, man. [00:01:26] Speaker B: So good. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Cool. [00:01:28] Speaker B: Well, awesome. Let's talk about some highlights. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Let's do it. [00:01:39] Speaker B: The listeners are listening. They're sending us some shout outs. I love it. From units. So we got a good one, guys. We have a search and rescue case all the way out from Corpus Christi, Texas. So we're going to share some Casa love for our fixed wing listeners. But there was a case where there were some divers missing for about 39 hours. From what I understand, the Casa crew found them about halfway through their second search of the evening, with the right observer spotting the dive light that the couple, as a couple. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Holy cow. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Was flashing at the plane. From what I understand. I think they searched 1650 nautical miles. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Gosh. [00:02:20] Speaker B: And once the divers were spotted, they radioed in a coast guard small boat to go pick them up. So, couple from Oklahoma. Uh, glad that you're okay. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:31] Speaker B: But awesome sar case for the Casa crews out there. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Anytime I tell, like, people figure out what I do for a living, and they're like, oh, like, you know, what's the best way to get, you know, rescued. I'm like, it's a light. Like, obviously a life jacket. Stay afloat, but have a little light. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:48] Speaker A: And that'll get you found. [00:02:50] Speaker B: That's it. [00:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:51] Speaker B: And if you can afford an epirb, try to get. [00:02:53] Speaker A: I mean, obviously, that makes. That takes a good. That's not a rescue. That's an uber ride. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Anytime there's, like, an ePIrB case or PLB or elt, whatever you want to call it, you know? [00:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:05] Speaker B: It's so easy. It's almost like cheating. [00:03:06] Speaker A: That's like. That's like, you know, you hanging out at the bars at night, and you pull up your uber app, and you're like, all right, take me home. And, you know, that's it. Yeah. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Some dude pulls up in an old Toyota Corolla or Nissan Altima. Oh, boy. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Don't get me started with the Nissan Altimas, but great. [00:03:20] Speaker A: That was awesome. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Great freaking case. Corpus Christi. Keep up the hard work out there. Stay cool. Hopefully, it's not as hot as it is here in Mobile, Alabama, and I'll. [00:03:30] Speaker A: See you for your stand visit, Corpus. Ooh, I'm excited. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Should they be studying anything specific? [00:03:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Best barbecue places for Max. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Easy enough. How about Tex Max? I think that's a thing. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm going to eat good for that trip. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Are you gonna rip any dirt bikes on their beach? [00:03:46] Speaker C: Yep. [00:03:46] Speaker B: I heard that's, like, a thing. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Yep. [00:03:48] Speaker B: South Padre island somewhere. Yeah. [00:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm just gonna open up a two stroke on a beach. I'm gonna be happy. [00:03:55] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:03:55] Speaker A: That's gonna be good, dude. Yeah. Nice. Nice work, corpus. That's a great case. Keep it up. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Sweet. Want to chat about some news? [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it. In other news and other news, have. [00:04:11] Speaker B: You heard about the three additional sixties that are going to Kodiak, Alaska? [00:04:15] Speaker A: I have. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Next summer. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Or, you know, in or around. But with those 360s that they're setting up there, they're looking for about 15 pilots. [00:04:25] Speaker A: You don't say. [00:04:26] Speaker B: And from what I understand, according to the detailers notes, they might be looking for some 65 echo aircraft commanders. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you're hanging out in the southeast and you're too warm and you want to get up to the northwest, and you're a echo aircraft commander, and you're transferring an FY 25, probably go. [00:04:44] Speaker B: To Kodiak, what are your thoughts on that? [00:04:46] Speaker A: I'm pumped, man. I think it's probably some creative decision making. [00:04:50] Speaker B: I think it's ironic because we just shut down Alpat. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:53] Speaker B: And I think 65 folks, for the most part, thought they were probably marked safe from Kodiak, Alaska. And then it's been about a year or so, and then more people probably get sent up there. And of course, it has to happen. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker B: 60 fleet, apparently. But, dude, I was thinking about it. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Seems like a cool opportunity if I'm flying, like, 65. Plastic fantastic. Love that helicopter. If I'm flying in Alaska, I probably wouldn't be flying big iron. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:05:22] Speaker A: I like to say nobody else will hear me say that, but I just said it on a recording for a podcast that people listen to. [00:05:27] Speaker B: I mean, if you look at the pictures and we're sitting in this space right now, we have a bunch of cool aviation pictures up the sixties. A robust helicopter. [00:05:34] Speaker A: That's an Alaska pickup truck right there. It's gonna get you point a to point b. [00:05:39] Speaker B: That's a big 65. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Still better, though. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Yep, yep, yep. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:43] Speaker B: So what else is going on, man? [00:05:47] Speaker A: I sent an all hands email out and misspelled the word served, instead wrote severed. [00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that's some. Yeah. Okay. Instead of saying serve beer, I said severed beer, dude, there. [00:06:00] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure, like, run your emails through word, or I thought. I thought there was, like, an autocorrect. [00:06:05] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:06:06] Speaker B: But maybe severed beers is something. That's a common term. And, like, yeah. And Microsoft was just like, yeah, man, looks good to me. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Sweet. So, yeah, I think I like to self sabotage when I send all handsy emails. I just misspell it'll keep you safe. [00:06:17] Speaker B: From probably some of the administrative work. [00:06:19] Speaker A: I'd like to think that's what I'm doing. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Could potentially be thrown your way. Anywho, sweet. Let's hit up our folks in North Bend. [00:06:26] Speaker A: I'm pumped. [00:06:26] Speaker B: All right, let's go. [00:06:34] Speaker A: That song is played every time the aircraft commander of this case walks down the hallway. Justin Bench, all the way from North Bend. What's going on, man? [00:06:45] Speaker B: Hey, Justin. [00:06:46] Speaker D: Hey, guys. How you doing, dude? [00:06:48] Speaker A: Better now. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:49] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Thanks for coming on, man. Why don't you give a little intro, tell the listeners about who you are, what you do. [00:06:58] Speaker D: Yeah, so I'm just. I'm up at North Bend, Oregon. I'm a prior Navy guy, came in the coast, hurt in 15, did a tour in North Bend, went to ATC, and then I came back to north and a couple of years ago. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Nice, man. That's awesome. Would you fly in the Navy? [00:07:18] Speaker D: I flew 60 romeos as one of the stand up pilots that sit at the first 60 in the Navy, so. [00:07:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Right on. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Awesome. And do you have any special cold bread beverage in front of you or anything like that? [00:07:33] Speaker D: You know, we brought a couple of beverages today, one we felt doing a little ode to you guys, so we got a little Fort George. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Ok. Yeah. [00:07:42] Speaker D: You guys should be pretty familiar with that. So that's the one I'm indulging in right now. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Love it. [00:07:48] Speaker A: That's tasty. That's a good one, man. [00:07:50] Speaker D: Yeah, it is. Not bad. [00:07:51] Speaker A: You know what? Their pizza almost is better than their beer. [00:07:56] Speaker D: Don't say that. [00:07:57] Speaker A: I think, dude, they have this hot honey, like, hawaiian pizza. Oh. [00:08:01] Speaker B: I don't know what it is about the Pacific Northwest, but, man, the brews coming out of there are tasty. [00:08:05] Speaker A: They do a good job. [00:08:06] Speaker B: I wasn't drinking and Justin and actually, I met all you guys up there, but I wasn't drinking a whole lot of ipas before I came up for that stand visit a couple years ago. And once I got up there, I was. I basically, like, grew a flannel shirt on my body, and I started drinking ipas and I was loving every bit of it. Yeah. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Main line and ipas, man. I remember the transition. Dude, you came back, I was like, it's summertime. Why are you wearing a flannel? Shut up. Give me an ipa. Yeah. Sweet. All right, we got also Maddie Murby on the. On the line as well. [00:08:37] Speaker E: Yes, sir. [00:08:38] Speaker A: What's up, man? [00:08:39] Speaker F: Nick doing well. [00:08:40] Speaker D: Let's go. [00:08:41] Speaker F: Deal. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Oh, you better. Now, again? Dude, this is great, man. I'm great. Thanks for asking. Yeah, tell us a bit about yourself, dude. [00:08:49] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. [00:08:50] Speaker F: So I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Go bears. [00:08:53] Speaker F: Yep. Go bears. And I was fortunate enough to get flight school right out of graduation. [00:08:57] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:08:59] Speaker F: For about two and a half years. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Heck, yeah. What year did you graduate? [00:09:03] Speaker E: 20. [00:09:03] Speaker D: 1919. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Very cool, man. [00:09:05] Speaker B: That's what's up. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome. How you like in north bend? [00:09:08] Speaker E: It's great. [00:09:09] Speaker F: Love the flying here. The little to be desired, but can't get better flying area and training. [00:09:17] Speaker E: For sure. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Gosh, there's something to be said about flying around some mountains. [00:09:22] Speaker F: Absolutely. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Mountains and big swell. That's awesome, man. Well, thanks for coming on. And then we got. Audien, what's going on, brother? [00:09:30] Speaker E: Hey, nothing. I'm doing awesome. [00:09:36] Speaker A: I'm doing good, in case you wanted to ask me to. Oh, yeah. [00:09:43] Speaker E: Oh, man. My name is Dustin Otters. I'm amt one here in North Bend. My first tour was. I was an on rate on the active, actually, back in 2010. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Nice. That's a 210, right? [00:09:55] Speaker E: That's a 210. [00:09:56] Speaker A: They had all those, like, spicy names for the 210s, like the active and. [00:09:59] Speaker E: The diligence, and I think that's the only two that I remember. Right? [00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah, same. [00:10:06] Speaker B: There was probably, like a relentless. A passionate one. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:12] Speaker E: And then, you know, before I joined the coast guard, I wanted to. I actually wanted to be a airline pilot, and I went to college and then kind of standard story. It's really expensive. Do that. And I ran out of money. I originally was going to just do a foreign out the door, get the GI bill, and then kind of go on with that original plan and work out. So here I am 15 years later. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Nice. What units you've been to? [00:10:36] Speaker E: I've been to. I've actually, my last tour was at Hitron. I did a hitron tour. I've done North Bend even before that. So this is my second time here at North Bend and program in Port Angeles. [00:10:49] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:10:50] Speaker A: That. That is great. Wow. Yeah, you went. You went. You started out nice and cool weather, and then you went down to the southeast and you're like, no, you know what? I need to go drink some. Some good ipas and get cold again. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Is that a. Is that a common thing to have a bunch of returning folks at North Bend for, like, second tour or, like, for a second trip around? [00:11:09] Speaker E: Because there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. And of course, we have the name for them. We call them retreads. Right. Like a. Like a retread attire. You know, they leave and come back. And I think right now we have probably four or five people that were here all at the same time on the hangar deck alone, not counting some of the. [00:11:27] Speaker B: That's really cool. [00:11:28] Speaker A: I see North Bend. Little diamond in the rough up there, huh? [00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah, man, actually, I'm not. [00:11:33] Speaker A: I've never heard a bad thing about North Bend, dude, it's pretty. [00:11:36] Speaker E: Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's. I enjoy it. I actually do enjoy it. Like I said, kind of second time here, so this is. This is one of the places that I kind of enjoy being in the coast guard. [00:11:47] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Sweet, dude. Did you get any. Did you get any flight time or, like, private pilot? Did you make it through any of that stuff when you're going through school? [00:11:55] Speaker E: So, yeah, I started. I started doing all of that. I didn't really finish it. I actually finished my private pilot a couple later, but, yeah, that's one of my. That's one of my main hobbies is my fiance and I. We like to rent the plane here locally and go fly and go get lunch out. [00:12:11] Speaker A: Dude, that's awesome. [00:12:13] Speaker E: That's great. [00:12:14] Speaker B: I would love to do that. What a place to do it, too. Do you fly in the winter? [00:12:19] Speaker E: Whenever I can, but generally not. I'm a VFR pilot, so I try to play in the goop. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Have you ever. Have you ever taken that fixed wing bad boy over to Crater Lake? [00:12:29] Speaker E: Oh, actually, you say that I have. We took it out a couple of months ago to Crater Lake and kind of flew around, and I. It was. It was beautiful. Of course it is, you know, but, like, you see it from the air. [00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:42] Speaker E: And it is flipping massive. It is so big, actually. See it up close or not. Not up close is what it is. And it's. It's. It's huge. It's like seeing the. The Grand Canyon, you know? [00:12:54] Speaker B: That is awesome. [00:12:55] Speaker A: That's. [00:12:55] Speaker B: I don't know why, but that's on my bucket list of things to do before I go. Do you know what I mean? But I'm also. I'm also really terrified of that lake because I heard it's, like, the deepest lake in the world or something like that. Or. Is that true? I don't know. [00:13:10] Speaker E: That's what they say. I just. [00:13:12] Speaker B: I'm just scared because I don't know what. What's at the bottom of that thing. [00:13:15] Speaker A: It's a monster. I can. [00:13:15] Speaker B: There's a. There's a sort of little lake critter. [00:13:18] Speaker A: There's a mountain lake monster, for sure. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Well, welcome, man. [00:13:21] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:13:23] Speaker E: All right. [00:13:24] Speaker A: And last and most certainly not least, we got John the branch Walton. What's up, brother? [00:13:32] Speaker B: It's not the branch. It's just branch. [00:13:34] Speaker A: Oh, I thought it was the Branch. [00:13:35] Speaker B: It's not like the rock. [00:13:39] Speaker A: What's up, dude? [00:13:40] Speaker C: Oh, man. How y'all doing? [00:13:42] Speaker A: Oh, man. We're good. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Better now. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Better now. [00:13:49] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:13:50] Speaker C: I'm Branch Weldon. I'm stationed up here in North Bend, too. I joined back here in 2019, and this is my first tour as a swimmer. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Very cool, man. Have you had any other notable, like, rescues in the past? Your name sounds familiar for the folks listening. Branch was the rescue swimmer on that case up in Astoria, Oregon, where a gentleman had stolen a boat in a pretty gnarly swell. Boat ends up flipping. Branch probably flipped a couple times, too. Ended up getting the guy and throwing him in the back of a 60. Um, I. I'm pretty sure you can, like, Google coast guard. Boat rescue. Flip something in that order and it'll come up on. I highly recommend watching it is gnarly. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:37] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Branch, are you. [00:14:39] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Are you extremely tired of talking about that case yet? [00:14:43] Speaker C: No, no, I wasn't really doing that much. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Looked like you did all the things to me. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I blacked out and the guy was in the helicopter. I don't really know what happened in. [00:14:54] Speaker B: Between then that a school training is different these. These days. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Man. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Good stuff. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah. That's awesome. Sweet. Well, we're not here to talk about that case. We're here to talk about another case. High altitude, nighttime. Why don't you paint the picture for us, old Justin bench. [00:15:17] Speaker D: All right, buddy. So we're sitting there on duty. I think it was the day before for the 27th. Yeah. 26 May. We're all on duty together. It's a beautiful Oregon day today. Skies are clear, winds are calm throughout the aor, and we're about to get ready for bed. It's about 730 or so. I'm an old man, so I go to bed early. [00:15:49] Speaker A: That's my favorite part of duty, is like that dusk time, and you're like, you know, watch some good movies. [00:15:53] Speaker B: You know what? I'm a little sleepy now. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Feeling a bit heavy up in the duty room. I'm gonna take a snoozer. [00:16:01] Speaker D: Yep, absolutely. [00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:04] Speaker D: We ended up getting a call around 751. We got notified from our off so that we had an inland case coming. So we work a lot with the star coordinator for inland sar out here in Oregon, being one of the only shows in Oregon. So he basically usually reaches out to our. Also when they don't have other assets available to do any of these inland cases. And I guess this case was unique because the aircraft that usually services this area was down, and so they didn't have anyone else available to send out to it. So the case details came in as Mount McLaughlin, which is a 9500 foot stratovolcano. [00:16:50] Speaker A: That's a lot of cool words you just threw out there. [00:16:54] Speaker B: Stratovolcano. I'm going to google that. [00:16:58] Speaker D: That's how I know it's a very typical volcano. It's just a very vertical mountain. It came in as a hiker that fell down with an open fracture of their tibia fibula. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Ooh, yeah, that's rough. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Yikes. [00:17:18] Speaker D: They didn't have anyone else available to go in and. And pick her up. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Is this a typically hiked area? [00:17:26] Speaker D: Not that I'm aware, but they usually have an aircraft out there that does search and rescue. So we want to know if it. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Do you know what kind of aircraft that they actually do usually service this area with? [00:17:38] Speaker D: I don't actually know. [00:17:42] Speaker F: I don't know. [00:17:43] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:17:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Probably some like high altitude, a star, like not a 65. So I'm trying to get. [00:17:49] Speaker D: Yeah, it's one of the volcanoes in the Cascade mountain range, so like it is out of Crater Lake. So they, I'm sure they get lots of high altitude cases out there and stuff. So they have to have something high altitude and not a 65. The information we got initially was approximately like 6200ft up the mountain. We were told it was going to be pretty open, so we did some, some quick performance planning and stuff, determined that depending on the winds we were seeing, we were going to be pretty tight on power in the aircraft. It was about 100 plus miles inland from north Bend. [00:18:34] Speaker A: Wow. [00:18:35] Speaker D: So there's a trek in there. Yeah, for sure, which was a good thing. But the time of the call was just before sunset. So we did some very, very fast initial planning, but we wanted to get on scene before the sunset because it was supposed to be zero illumination for. [00:18:54] Speaker A: That night, like there always is, of course. [00:18:57] Speaker D: Yep, exactly. So the initial call to take off, we took a little bit extra time, but we were essentially off deck right around that 25 minutes mark or so, heading inland. Yeah, not too bad. [00:19:14] Speaker B: Not bad at all. [00:19:15] Speaker D: It was pretty much a direct flight in there for going in there. We got on scene just prior to sunset so the sun was just setting. And I'm glad because 6200ft was pretty much, the snow line was probably around like 5000ft. So a lot of these open fields and stuff that we're looking to land in actually field, they were actually frozen lakes. [00:19:42] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:19:43] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:19:44] Speaker A: We'll tell that on goggles very easily. [00:19:46] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Geez. [00:19:48] Speaker D: Not all. [00:19:48] Speaker A: So when you said, I want to back it up real quick. When you said you guys did some performance planning, were you just ripping Todd cards? [00:19:55] Speaker D: Yeah, we ripped a few tie cards, just seeing what it would look like. [00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:01] Speaker D: And it was going to be very, very close on that or so. [00:20:07] Speaker A: Right? [00:20:07] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:20:07] Speaker A: Were you and I guess were you off scale on anything? I'm trying to think, being that high, did you get any Todd cards or like, hey, off scale or off? [00:20:19] Speaker D: They're, they're extrapolated out when you use the eTAg card. Yeah, yeah. When you look at the performance chart, it says that all the, all the data is predicted data. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:29] Speaker D: Not at us. So it's all extrapolated out above, but I think five. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's why. That's okay, man. Gosh, that's a. That's it. Gotta rip a Todd card for a case like this. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:43] Speaker A: As wild. [00:20:44] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:46] Speaker A: Sweet. [00:20:46] Speaker D: Absolutely. [00:20:47] Speaker A: So in route when you guys are flying and I don't know if Matt, if you want to jump in here, are you guys also using the performance page on the CDU to back that stuff up and trying to like figure it out? [00:20:59] Speaker F: Yeah, absolutely. So I was flying out there because I was in the left seat obviously. So Justin was in there messing around trying to see what different wins would give us and then get an estimate of how much fuel we would need to start hoisting. [00:21:13] Speaker A: And then, Matt, you never. Did you fly Deltas, Matt, or were. [00:21:18] Speaker F: You just echoing early echo guy? [00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah. What did you think, Justin, about the performance calculations and all of, you know, I guess because you had to go inland. Like were you using all the perf. Perf. Prog pages and all that stuff as well? [00:21:31] Speaker D: Yeah, quite a bit of it. I don't dig too deep in that. I rely on dig deeper into that being a dumb. But definitely the performance playing page. We started plugging numbers in and stuff and, and we essentially, I was wanting at least 10% margin, especially in that, that mountainous terrain. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:21:51] Speaker D: For hoisting. And we determined that it was going to be probably about 700 pounds of gas with all of us on board for 10%. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Was there an airport that had fuel services that was 6000ft away? [00:22:07] Speaker D: Unfortunately, I think it was a little bit further than that. Let's see. Probably about 30 ish miles away. Yeah. [00:22:17] Speaker A: That's not bad. That's not bad man. That's nice. [00:22:20] Speaker D: Yeah. But we still need to account for enough gas to get branched down to special patient, bring them back up. That was a big factor for it for sure. [00:22:32] Speaker A: So then you're not. So since this call went through the opso, it did not go. It wasn't treated like a medevac. So did you didn't have any kind of conversation with any flight surgeon branch, did you? [00:22:45] Speaker C: Oh yeah, no, I didn't have any conversations with our flight doctor or anything like that for this case. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Sweet. So you were just kind of rolling off of completely like what you guys heard on the initial call, like, you know, possible, you know, you know, fracture and protrusion of the bone. Right? [00:23:02] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Back injury. [00:23:05] Speaker A: Dang. So you were, you were bringing it all? You brought all of it? [00:23:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Just the EMT kit, the litter and the backboard. [00:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool, man. Nice. And then, Audie, when you obviously a seasoned flight mech. You hear this call come in? What are you thinking? [00:23:24] Speaker E: It sounded interesting. I mean right off the bat. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:27] Speaker E: Obviously I've had a lot of here in North Bend. I've been on a lot of inland cases this particular tour, but this one was definitely an outlier knowing that it was on a mountain and at 6000 plus feet, you know, that's a. I've never hoisted that high before. [00:23:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:44] Speaker E: But I'll give you a quick, quick side note here is branch and I actually were on a medevac case inland probably a year prior to this case. So he and I kind of already, we had a plan of what we wanted to do when we got on there, just judging by what we saw on our previous case together. So it was really cool to have a branch specifically, you know, to kind of bounce some ideas off of. And then we were. As we were flying out we were like, hey, do you remember when we picked that XYZ dude up? Why don't we do this and this and that? That? Yeah, we'll try. And we did. And that's what we did when we eventually got there and started. And started doing some work. [00:24:25] Speaker A: But gosh, that's always, that's always comforting having you know, somebody that you already worked a very similar case with. Especially when it's, you know, this unique. [00:24:36] Speaker E: Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. [00:24:39] Speaker A: Sweet, sweet. So you guys, Justin, so you guys roll up right prior to sunset and you're kind of doing your. The site recon. [00:24:49] Speaker D: Yeah, we were flying over the site. We were told there was going to be a kind of an open area. It was not an open area. It was in the wilderness area, completely tree covered. Luckily by this point it's maybe 1520 minutes after sunset and we're able to see their lights poking up through the trees. And the trees were probably 250ft plus tall, which we were hoping for maybe a little opening somewhere which did not end up being the case whatsoever. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Holy cow. [00:25:23] Speaker D: So we, we had a lot of gas though still. So we just started flying back and forth. But what was happening that day is the winds were kind of out of the northwest and where the base was happening was on the southeast side of Mount McLaughlin. So we were having a windshadow which I mean, if I was going to 60 that would be great. But our aircraft really loves wind. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yes, she does. [00:25:52] Speaker D: It was not great for us. We continued to burn down till we were probably around 850 pounds or so. And at that we were expecting to see about five, five ish 7% torque margin. We started doing some power checks over the top of the. And slowing up, we were decelerating like through ten knots and pulling up to 98% with still 100 foot per minute rate of descent at about two to five knots of ground speed. So at that point we had already decided like we needed at least 700 pounds to do the hoist branch down, let him do his magic and then bring him back. And at this point when we're pulling 98% for the 200 foot per minute ray descent with speed on the aircraft, we determined that that was probably not going to happen. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not, that's not made in 150 pound loss. If you guys are sitting at 850, like I've been there and you're kind of like, okay, like I should see close to it when I do this power check. And you roll into that power check and you're like, oh boy. You know, that's. Yep. This is not, this is not what's going to happen. [00:27:05] Speaker B: When you guys were doing that and running back and forth and doing the power checks, were you, were you in comms with anybody on the ground where they like asking you what's going on? [00:27:14] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a common thing that happens. [00:27:21] Speaker A: What are you doing? [00:27:23] Speaker D: It was actually on the county line out there. So I think it was Lane county and Lynn county. [00:27:30] Speaker A: That's not confusing. [00:27:31] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. It was clamming. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:35] Speaker A: So that, so they had, they had rescue personnel on scene. [00:27:39] Speaker C: I. [00:27:40] Speaker D: They did, yeah. And I mean, find out. We found out that this lady wasn't just out hiking, she was out skiing mountain McLaughlin. [00:27:49] Speaker A: So she's doing like backpacking like hiking up and skiing down, correct? [00:27:54] Speaker D: Yep, yep. And then biffed it and broke her tibia open fracture. And apparently she strapped on her ski boot and tightened it down and then crawled for the. About 3 miles before somebody found her. [00:28:12] Speaker A: So crawled 3 miles. [00:28:14] Speaker B: She's lucky somebody found her. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Holy cow. [00:28:20] Speaker D: Yeah. So she had been out there already 6 hours. But you got out there on scene. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Holy shit. That's crazy. That is insane. Holy, that's super lucky. So who found her? Was it like fellow hikers or skiers? [00:28:40] Speaker D: I don't actually. [00:28:41] Speaker F: Was another hiker who alerted one of the counties there and they started there is up there. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Wow. Holy cow. And then how much of this was the information of her condition? Pretty like fluid. Like were you guys, you know, getting updates and things? [00:29:00] Speaker D: I mean, we kind of knew initially what her condition was, but I think another aspect of the rescue is her open fracture. And then she was about still 3 miles up the trailhead and it would have been a three mile hike out at nighttime through the snow and lava rock to get her out. So there's a lot more than just her condition that was going into the push to get a helicopter on. [00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Because of her future condition. Like. Yeah, that's not. [00:29:28] Speaker B: That would take a long time, man. Hike somebody out 3 miles. [00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Or more potentially. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Especially if they're not ambulatory. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's tough. [00:29:35] Speaker A: And. Okay. That is. Gosh, that's wild. Okay, so. So you guys. So you guys are doing power checks at this point and you know, you're not seeing what you want to see, right? [00:29:46] Speaker D: Yep. Yep. So at that point we can. We. We discussed a little bit as a crew out going out there that we might need to land and offload some gear. We weren't sure how much gear and I. And in hindsight, we probably could have left a lot of gear at home. That being said, we didn't. So luckily, Matt was looking at the jog air charge while we were doing circles up there trying to burn down gas and just evaluate power checks and stuff. And Matt was able to find an abandoned airfield about 3 miles south. Spot was. So then we decided, well, we got to get rid of some weight somewhere. We'll go down there. Even though it's abandoned, we'll do a quick overflight. At this point, it's pitch blackout. There's no illumination. And then we're also in a wilderness area, so there's no street lights or anything else like that. So nice and dark for us. So we flew down to this abandoned area. We did one over pass with like our searchlights going down. Just looking for wires, free lamps or anything else. There's a parking lot, northeast corner of it where they had an ambulance set up. Oh, nice. I guess that ambulance is set there to establish as an LZ. But they put the LZ between them and the main road, which was very tight spots. So we overflew the area. And then just based on time and everything, we just did 180 and came into land in the parking lot, which was about 5000ft. So again, the other aspect is the layers at around 6200ft, the tree 250ft above that. So we were power checks around six, 6000, 707,000ft. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Holy cow. [00:31:49] Speaker D: So that was probably a factor in like, our performance going out there. We looked at performance at 6200 going out there because that's. And then we were doing the tracks at closer 7000ft. So then we found the spot. We came around and we were probably on deck like five minutes after we made that decision, because we were running out of gas quick. [00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. As one does in the 65. [00:32:16] Speaker D: Yep, yep. So we came in a little hot to the parking lot, set it down. We thought the all vehicles in the parking lot were there for the star case, but there was one car sitting there that was not there for. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Man, were they doing weird things in their car. [00:32:35] Speaker E: Absolutely freaking out. [00:32:36] Speaker D: Confirmed or denied. A snow parking lot when there's no snow. [00:32:44] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:32:45] Speaker B: I'm curious now. [00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Imagine what they're thinking. They're just up there, and all of a sudden, a helicopter comes in. [00:32:52] Speaker C: Wham. [00:32:53] Speaker A: That's wild. Anyways, we digress. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Oh, sorry. That made me happy. [00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:01] Speaker D: In that spot, we started offloading a ton of stuff. [00:33:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Were you. Were you worried about dirty John and his boys taking your life raft? [00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah, taking the helicopter. [00:33:15] Speaker B: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So what. Yeah. What were some of the considerations for, like, just removing gear? Were you, like, strip it like a. Make it a flatbed truck, or were there certain things that you wanted to keep in there? [00:33:27] Speaker D: Well, honestly, we went down there with the idea that we were gonna have one chance at this. [00:33:32] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:32] Speaker D: Like, if not, we're gonna put ourselves in the same exact situation. So we had been talking about it even on the way out there, about potentially a crew member not being. But initially on the way out there, we thought there was gonna be an open spot for us to land at the hoist side. So the conversation wasn't going where it ended up going, but we, at that point, decided in a very quick decision that for us to have the best opportunity for success, we had to get rid of everything we possibly could. Unfortunately, Matt also was. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Did I just picture Justin slowly turning his head and having this, like, the smile, like, the grin. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:25] Speaker A: And just looking at Matt and just be like, get out. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Hey, brother, you see those people in that car over there? You're gonna be spending the night with them tonight. Oh, poor Matt. [00:34:35] Speaker A: I mean, you know what? You kind of go, like. You know, you kind of go around a crew compliment for a hoist. Right. Well, you definitely need the right seat pilot. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Even though we have hoist controls on the collective, you're not doing that by yourself. So you need zero one flight mechanics. Yep. And then I. You're going punching through a tree line. Need to triage a patient and correctly bring them back up, probably with the trail line. You need zero one coast guard rescue, some. [00:34:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker A: Now, Matt. Sorry, man. [00:35:03] Speaker B: All right, so Matt got voted off the island. [00:35:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:07] Speaker D: Okay. When we first took the duty. I passed Matt the aircraft commander. Phone was like, hey, you're almost an aircraft commander, why don't you take the phone day? And, uh, well, he still had the phone on him when he got out of the helicopter. So he was ops from the ground while I was still flying. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. There you go. Made himself useful. [00:35:30] Speaker B: That's funny. [00:35:30] Speaker A: That's awesome. Sweet. So, okay, uh, Matt, obviously, but you're bummed, right? But, yeah, but, like, you jump out of the helicopter, you, you know, you make a beeline for that weird car. I'm just kidding you probably. What do you go. You go make contact with the EMTs in the ambulance or. [00:35:50] Speaker F: Yeah, so I went to the ambulance first. Their fire captain was there and she was a little bit missed about what we were doing. So I explained its limitations. Of the mighty MH 65. [00:36:02] Speaker A: You brought your iPad up, you pulled up a slideshow, and you're like, let me teach you. [00:36:06] Speaker B: This is a Todd cardinal. [00:36:08] Speaker A: This is why there's another helicopter that should be doing this. [00:36:12] Speaker F: I did ask. I was like, sure there's no other assets available tonight? [00:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah, anyone, please, anyone. [00:36:20] Speaker A: And then. And then you're just kind of doing comms relay back and forth with home plate and just kind of keeping a prize. [00:36:28] Speaker F: Yeah. So I knew we were kind of stepping outside of policy a little bit. So I did reach out to ops right away just to get that top cover for Justin. And they were going to be on, it's called CGI op. So it's a frequency that uses cell towers. Was going to be listening into their sector call. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Is that the 80 MHz frequency? [00:36:50] Speaker F: I have no idea. [00:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:54] Speaker D: 82.1235 to be exact. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Nice. Oh, God. Justin Bench, former comma. Yeah. Okay. [00:37:04] Speaker E: Pinnacle. [00:37:05] Speaker F: So I didn't opt to be too surprised when he heard that there was now zero three pob. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you do the leaving copilot on scene checklist? [00:37:17] Speaker F: Yeah. So the big. The most important thing I did, I guess I have a tendency to put the searchlight out in front and blew out everyone's goggles. So Justin had told me once for. [00:37:31] Speaker D: That. [00:37:34] Speaker F: I was pointing directly down before I left the aircraft. And then Justin said, I set up the radios. I honestly don't remember doing that, but sure, I'll take credit for it. [00:37:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. Sweet. So, Justin, you kick out your, you know, your 200 pounds, your 20 minutes of gas right there, and you, you pick up and immediately you're getting the warm and fuzzy, like, hey, this thing's flying a little bit better. [00:37:58] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, definitely. Once Matt was off the aircraft, it definitely. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, it is. It is pretty wild, man. You go single pilot in this thing, and you. You pull up and it bounces off the ground. It wants to fly. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:38:11] Speaker D: Well, another thing we started looking at when we started looking at the power charts is every kind of hundred pounds at that altitude equates to about one and a half percent of power instead of, like, the same 1%. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Sure. [00:38:23] Speaker D: At. [00:38:24] Speaker C: At sea level. [00:38:25] Speaker D: So we dropped probably between the gas we burned and the raft and every single other thing in the back of the aircraft, we dropped probably around 500 pounds right there. [00:38:39] Speaker A: Branch, did you bring the litter, or did you kick that out, too? [00:38:44] Speaker C: No, we kept the litter. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Because you didn't know about the back injury or nothing. [00:38:49] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:38:50] Speaker C: So we kept the litter. Didn't want to throw her in the basket with a broken tip. [00:38:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Gosh, that's. That's the litter, man. It's like, yes, it's a very useful piece of equipment, but it weighs so much, and it is. The first thing in my mind is like, do we really need this thing? [00:39:05] Speaker B: Well, it doesn't fit in the 65 very well either. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker C: No, we definitely kept the litter, though. But everything else. [00:39:12] Speaker A: So you, uh. Obviously, EMT kit had that on board with you, too, right? [00:39:17] Speaker C: Yeah. EMT kit. PC or patient care monitor? [00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Okay, sweet. All right, cool. So you pick up. She's flying again, and then Audi. Are you just getting ready to hoist back there, like, cleaning up the cabin? Getting ready for what? [00:39:32] Speaker E: There was no clean. We took every. If it wasn't bolted down, we took it all out of the panel for the raft was gone. I think the swimmer seat that remained, the basket, the net, everything. [00:39:46] Speaker A: I can't imagine being this fire chief watching a helicopter land. Just people start throwing shit out of it, and then a pilot does not go with the helicopter, and, like, all right, we'll be back. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:58] Speaker A: That did take some explaining. Yeah. Sorry I cut you off, Audi, keep going. [00:40:01] Speaker E: Dropped it in front of the sketchy guy, actually. I thought he was, like, the emergency crew first, so I was like, dude. [00:40:09] Speaker A: I would have inflated that. [00:40:10] Speaker B: He probably could have helped you with something. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:14] Speaker E: But, yeah, then branch and I got back into the aircraft, and then it was then, like, we looked around. We're like, okay, we have a lot of room to work in here now. And we still had the litter, of course. And that thing is so beefy, and it's so big that it's unwieldy, of course. But, yeah, it was a good. It was definitely the. The right choice to keep the litter on us because that was. It was a requirement for what branch ended up having. But, uh. [00:40:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Now, you. You saw those. You saw those treetops, and I'm sure you took a snapshot of that altitude. So you're getting ready for a high, high hoist right now. [00:40:51] Speaker E: Right. [00:40:51] Speaker A: Are you doing anything to get ready for that? [00:40:54] Speaker E: Definitely. One of the things that I started to do is, as we were getting ready to. We pulled into the hover. We check part one had been completed already. We pulled into the hover to do the power check, and Mister Bench basically gave me the word. He's like, yeah, this is it. This is our chance. Let's go. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:13] Speaker E: And we pulled into a hover over this, I'll call it, the most clear area that we. That we had. There was still, like, trees and brush and debris down at the bottom, but it was a side of this, this little pocket of treetops and stuff. And it was dark. Like, it was. It was really dark. And as soon as I popped open the hatch, I asked for. I asked for hoist power. I went to go pull my goggles off, of course, because that's part of the checklist. Is that what you do? And I popped my goggles up to take a look out. Take a look outside of the cabin door, and it was pitch black, and you couldn't see anything. I instantly dropped him back down, like, nope, that's a terrible idea. I don't like. I don't like seeing that. And so I ended up doing the hoists with my goggles. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Fuck, yeah, dude. [00:42:11] Speaker E: Right. And it was definitely the right decision because I could see everything with the goggles on. You can see everything, especially with the landing lights on where they were. One thing that, when I popped the goggles off, I looked back towards the aft end of the aircraft. [00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:26] Speaker E: And all these that were out there, they just blended in with the. With the black sky. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:32] Speaker E: Big black void. [00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So you couldn't clear the tail or call any hazards or anything if you were unaided? [00:42:39] Speaker E: If I was unaided, no, I wouldn't have been able to do that at all. No, man. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Good decision making right there. [00:42:44] Speaker A: Awesome, dude. [00:42:46] Speaker E: So I popped him back down, then you can see everything, but I don't want to jump too far ahead in the story, but, yeah, we started to. I pulled, branched the door branch, scooted up to the door, and we started to hoist them down. And kind of the same effect happened is where he disappeared down below the avondura. Rail. And as soon as he was down there, he was like, dipping them into a void. Black pool. And he disappeared. Nothingness. [00:43:15] Speaker B: That's beautiful. [00:43:16] Speaker E: Until he lit up again underneath the landing light at the very bottom. [00:43:20] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. So you kind of knew like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go a little bit lost target here, but I know he's gonna pop visual down towards the bottom. [00:43:29] Speaker E: If I did not have my goggles on, he would have absolutely have been lost target. [00:43:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:34] Speaker B: Now, were you seeing him or was it more of the reflective tape on his vest or the harness? [00:43:39] Speaker E: I saw him. I did see him. He was giving me some hand signals. I saw the reflective tape on his vest, definitely. But part of this, too, was like, we were at. We were at our altitude. I don't want to say our altitude. I don't know exactly what it was, but it was higher than we had hoist cable. So there was a hoist as branch was going down, the hoist flow down. I actually thought we probably had some kind of hoist problem because I looked at it if it was still moving. And I reached out and I touched the cable and it was still moving. And then the barber pole appeared in the barber pole. 10ft of hoist cable left. [00:44:15] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:44:16] Speaker E: And then the hoist cable stopped completely and branch was still not on the ground. [00:44:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:44:21] Speaker E: And, yeah, that's when I thought, like, okay, one of two things. This is a big problem because we're not going to be able to complete the case. Or if we do this right, we can just sneak down a little bit further, start conning Mister bench down and see how far down we can get and what we're comfortable with until hopefully branch touches the ground. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Holy cow. [00:44:43] Speaker E: So I cleared Mister bench and said, okay, we're in kind of this pocket. I said, don't come back anymore. Back. And right there's trees that are better at our level and above our level. Yeah, don't come back. Right. Just come straight down. So he did. He started coming down and Branch was giving me the hand down sign or the go down signal. Eventually I saw him touch his feet to the ground and it was like a big sigh of relief. That's awesome. He disconnected and I saw him disconnect and walk away. And that's kind of when we moved into the next phase, which was we left. I left the hoist hook down there at the very bottom. And it actually gave me, like, the best visual reference that I had to con the helicopter to stay over. Yeah, there's a helicopter turning on our ramp right now. I wonder if you guys can hear it. [00:45:35] Speaker A: No, no, we can't hear it. I got questions, though. I got questions before I move forward. Branch, what was it like going down to that void? Because obviously you were not aided and you were just like, all right, send it. [00:45:48] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty dark. And obviously it was like a nighttime case, so I grabbed my little dust blasters, little goggles or whatever, and they had the tent on them, so I had tinted goggles. [00:46:00] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:46:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:46:03] Speaker C: So obviously I took those off my head. Yeah, but it was pretty dark, you know, even without those. Yeah, it was really dark. [00:46:13] Speaker A: How was the. How is that. How was that area? They decided, plunge you down and you hit a lot of branches going down? Or was it pretty. Was it pretty open? And they popped down pretty good. [00:46:23] Speaker C: It was honestly fairly open. There were trees, though. Like, I kind of. I hit a soft tree on the way down. Yeah, soft tree, but it was. [00:46:33] Speaker A: That's how he got the nickname branch, because he had a lot of branches going down. [00:46:37] Speaker C: I was just saying, what's up to my cousin, though. It was great. It was good. [00:46:45] Speaker A: Nice. [00:46:47] Speaker C: Yeah. So it, you know, a little bit on the way down, but when they stopped, it was. I could, like, the ground was right there. 10ft or so, maybe. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Okay, sweet. [00:47:00] Speaker C: It was right there. So they. [00:47:01] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:47:03] Speaker B: When you guys basically came down to where branch was finally met the ground, how much more room did you have below you that you could go? [00:47:12] Speaker D: I'd say none. [00:47:13] Speaker F: None. [00:47:14] Speaker E: None. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Okay. [00:47:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:16] Speaker B: So you really did Max that thing out. [00:47:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Justin, when he was. When Audie is like, all right, start coming down where you're like, what? [00:47:24] Speaker B: Damn, dude, that's insane. [00:47:27] Speaker D: Pretty interesting, because Audi had actually calmed me to the right and down, because just the way the trees were. So it actually made hoisting really easy because the trees were right there. So the references were right there. Yeah. Great. [00:47:43] Speaker B: With. With that. Justin, what was your torque margin when you guys finally got into a hover? On the second go here. And then. Were you using any specific hover modes? [00:47:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:54] Speaker D: So I don't know if you know this, but we had Brad out here for our last fan visit, and he was really pushing havog. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:48:00] Speaker D: And I was like, I should probably use that. Brad told me to. [00:48:05] Speaker B: Good job, Brad. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Hey, Brad. [00:48:07] Speaker B: He's not listening. [00:48:08] Speaker D: No, no. It was actually kind of interesting. It was. One thing I didn't think about when we came into the hover is how do I engage these modes? Like, taking my hand off the collective while trying to pull into a hover. [00:48:20] Speaker A: Oh, because you're single pilot. [00:48:21] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I kind of set everything up, and then there was, like, kind of fast hands reaching out, trying to hit. I used havog and belt. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Okay, nice. [00:48:32] Speaker D: And I was kind of like my mitigator for not having a copilot. [00:48:35] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. [00:48:37] Speaker D: And it was holding really well, except for when the power margin didn't allow George to pull. So I would say we were right around five ish percent, maybe a little bit more once we branch off the aircraft, but, yeah. [00:48:56] Speaker B: So you're pretty much riding that, like, that torque limiting the whole entire time. [00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:49:03] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:03] Speaker B: Awesome, man. [00:49:05] Speaker A: And you said you had good references, so were you on goggle off goggle for the treetops? A little bit of both. [00:49:12] Speaker D: I was on goggles. I put the searchlights both down below us. [00:49:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:16] Speaker D: There was no moon out or anything. And the ambient light coming off the lights below us provide enough lights on the trees off our nose and, well, everywhere around us. Nice to provide ambient light through goggles, at least. [00:49:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So through goggles. And were you peeking underneath the goggles at all, ever? Or were you just kind of, you know, were you just straight goggles? [00:49:39] Speaker D: Yeah, I did. I wasn't. There was nothing to look at. [00:49:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:44] Speaker D: Just black. So, yeah. [00:49:48] Speaker A: Sweet. When. So when he said swimmers away? Swimmers. Okay, were you like, oh, Boyden. Okay. [00:49:54] Speaker D: Yeah. As soon as branch came off, I was like, all right. We come back up and I bumped us back up above. Above the tree top there. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Also realizing that you're only halfway done with the job. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's always a great side when you get the swimmer down on a challenging hoist for a case like the first time, they disconnect. Like, cool. [00:50:14] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:14] Speaker A: I did it once. I can do this again. [00:50:16] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:50:17] Speaker A: Sweet. Oh, sorry, go ahead and. [00:50:20] Speaker D: Oh, no, no. I was just gonna say, the thing is, one of the things we talked about, based on our field and everything else happening, we talked about the lad poop hiccup. So, yeah, we were already planning that when branch went down because we hang out in that position for very long and we didn't have to do it either. So. [00:50:39] Speaker A: Yeah, adding a litter to that and then. Gosh, that's not fun. [00:50:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Sweet. Okay, so, um, branch, you get down and you're beeline it towards the patient. Um, how far of a walk was it for you? [00:50:55] Speaker C: Uh, it's probably about 25ft. Like, it was super close. [00:50:58] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:50:59] Speaker C: Yeah, it was really nice. I just walked right over there is, uh, two of the sheriffs down there, and, uh, they came up to meet me, and they're like, oh, yeah, she's up here. [00:51:08] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:51:08] Speaker C: And then we just walked over and, uh, they had her all packaged up. [00:51:11] Speaker A: Oh, sweet. [00:51:13] Speaker D: How. [00:51:14] Speaker A: How is. How was she, like, how her spirits. Was she conscious? [00:51:17] Speaker C: Like, it was crazy. Um, she was, like, smiling and stuff, and she was conscious. Awake. Aware. [00:51:23] Speaker A: Wow. [00:51:25] Speaker C: And, yeah, there is. She seems, you know, the surface to be okay. There was a. There's a paramedic doc down there, and he, you know, he was talking to me, giving me a patient pass down. And she didn't have a back injury or head injury. She's had the tip fib, which was honestly ideal. Yeah, yeah, it would have been head injury. And, you know, going up. [00:51:51] Speaker B: Was she sitting, like, was she, like, semi ambulatory sitting up, or was she on a backboard? [00:51:57] Speaker C: She was on a backboard. They already had her package. Stuff on the backboard. [00:51:59] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:52:00] Speaker C: And her face was covered and everything. Like, I couldn't see your face. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:52:05] Speaker C: Yeah, they had her totally covered up. [00:52:08] Speaker A: Gosh, dude. Drive through, man. Package ready to go, right? [00:52:11] Speaker C: Oh, it was awesome. Yeah, it was like taco, but it was crazy. [00:52:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So were you just, like, cool, man. We'll just back, like, use this backboard, put her in our litter, strap her down and haul him up. [00:52:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I kind of walked off and went to go get the. Go get the litter. I just kind of left them, left her there with them because she was obviously in good hands and went and got the litter. And once I got the litter, a few of them came over and we carried it over to her and then threw her in the litter while she was on the backboard and then picked the backboard up and walked it over. [00:52:45] Speaker A: Nice. [00:52:46] Speaker C: Okay. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Did we talk about how the litter got down yet? [00:52:51] Speaker F: No. [00:52:53] Speaker A: How did the litter. [00:52:56] Speaker E: Branch pass the mic to me to explain to now, the litter? Right after we let branch off, branch took off into the woods, and from our perspective, like, he ran into the area where the lady was, and he disappeared into the woods. We couldn't see him. So, like, okay, so this is a perfect chance to send down our equipment now. So I covered the hook, and of course, you know, we had to do this dance again where we came up above trees. I hooked the lift. I hooked two trail lines together so that I had the whole 200. And obviously, we know that that is not going to reach the ground. So paid out the entire length of the trail line, then connected the weak link to the hook, of course. And I started lowering the litter. I started lowering the hoist cable until the trail hit the ground. And then the ground crew started sending it at that. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Nice dude. [00:53:55] Speaker B: Very good. [00:53:56] Speaker A: That was. And that was all based off of just, like, professional, like, operating like nobody was talking to any. Anybody. And they just assumed. Hey, grab this tagline. [00:54:06] Speaker E: Yeah, that's. I'm. I think that's what happened. Unless branch. I don't think. Unless Branch told them to do that, which I don't think he did. [00:54:18] Speaker C: Yeah. I fell into a tree during the process. [00:54:22] Speaker A: Okay. Another branch. Another one of your cousins. [00:54:26] Speaker E: Yeah, on the video, you can fall into the tree. So I started making the joke that I made him eat a salad. [00:54:36] Speaker A: Sweet. [00:54:37] Speaker E: Yes. I guess it was branch. But he started tending the trail line and then pulled the basket down. And, of course, we exhausted the entire length of the cable again. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:44] Speaker E: And had to do the same thing where I con mister bench down or previously hoisting him down to the ground. So that branch remove the litter and then take it over to the. Take it over to the survivor. [00:54:56] Speaker A: Sweet. And then. And then. Yep. You package her up. And did you call ready for pickup, Branch? Obviously via the radio. [00:55:04] Speaker C: I think I hand signaled it. [00:55:06] Speaker E: I think he hand signals it. [00:55:08] Speaker D: Okay. [00:55:10] Speaker B: So there was just enough visibility to seek, like, somewhat decent hand signals. [00:55:13] Speaker D: Then there was one issue with the radios. Flying single pilot. We couldn't change them. Branch, call me from the radios, but it was on our star frequency that we were talking to the ground crew. [00:55:26] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:55:27] Speaker D: So I couldn't respond to them. [00:55:29] Speaker A: You didn't want to take your hands off the controls? [00:55:31] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Especially because I was having to augment George. So, yeah, there was. He definitely called it from the ground, but there was no way for me to answer him because I didn't want change radios. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:55:44] Speaker D: And take hands off the controls. [00:55:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Sweet. Okay, so litters coming back up. You guys are doing lad poo at this point, right? [00:55:53] Speaker E: That's right. [00:55:54] Speaker A: And you. And you discussed it prior to that? You're like, hey, we're probably gonna. You know, to minimize time and number of hoists, we're gonna do a lad poop recovery. [00:56:00] Speaker E: We did. Yeah, we discussed it. [00:56:03] Speaker A: How'd that go? Going through the canopy, branch, with the. With the litter? [00:56:08] Speaker C: It was super smooth. Yeah, that's. Dubench did a great job. I mean, it's super smooth. The guys on the ground, it was like. I told him, I was like, man, y'all gonna have to pull really hard or we're gonna start spinning. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:20] Speaker C: And there was five of them on the trail. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Dude, I'm surprised they didn't break the damn thing. [00:56:26] Speaker C: Yeah, it was great. Like, we didn't spin until, like, the trail line left their hand. [00:56:31] Speaker A: Nice. [00:56:33] Speaker B: And when that happened, what, you're probably 20 or less feet from the bottom of the helicopter or something like that. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:41] Speaker C: It was really hard to tell, but, yeah, I kept screaming at her, like, halfway. [00:56:47] Speaker A: That's bedside manor. Awesome, man. [00:56:50] Speaker B: Dude, perks of the lad poo. [00:56:52] Speaker A: Hey, look, you can see the volcano that you fell on over there. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Oh, wait, no, you can't. It's pitch black. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Okay, cool. So, like. And then. And then, obviously, you're probably, uh, audi. You're probably calling. Hey, you know, swimmer and patient are clear the canopy. Right. And at that point, like, sigh of relief, definitely. [00:57:14] Speaker E: No. Once branch came above, like, some of that lower brush and some of that, uh, lower trees that were kind of the bottom of the clearing, it really was, like, a sigh of relief. And I actually. I think I con. Mister bench back up. I was like, okay, he's up five or up ten. [00:57:29] Speaker A: Smart. [00:57:30] Speaker E: I think I come up. And you didn't want them to lose the trailer, right? That is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:57:36] Speaker D: Damn it. [00:57:37] Speaker A: That's right. [00:57:38] Speaker E: That is. Yeah, that's what happened. [00:57:40] Speaker D: And then, um. [00:57:40] Speaker E: No, and then once he got to, uh. You could tell as soon as they lost control of the trail line. Yeah, they started to turn a little bit, wasn't. It wasn't anything bad, but they did a whole half turn. [00:57:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's gonna happen. I feel like that's going to happen no matter what you do with the litter. [00:57:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's a sale. [00:57:57] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:57:59] Speaker E: Definitely pulled her and branch in at the same time. And actually, while we were flying out there to the case, I asked branch directly. I was like, hey, are you supposed to be in between the. The door and the litter, or are you supposed to be on the outside of the litter when I. He goes, no, I have to be in between. That's the only way I can come in. So I remembered that and I brought. It worked out perfectly. Yeah. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a lot of people and equipment to move inside of a small cabin, dude. [00:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:31] Speaker B: Like, and I understand how hard it is just to bring a litter alone in, and then you have a rescue swimmer hanging off the side as well. Like, good for you. I hope you've been exercising. [00:58:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:43] Speaker E: I exercised once. [00:58:47] Speaker A: It was that case. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Good lord. [00:58:50] Speaker A: And then. And then just. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. [00:58:53] Speaker E: I did. I ditched the trail line, and it floated back down. So I think, yeah, nice. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that's smart, because I. The last thing I want to do after I just did a challenging hoist is listen to the flight mech for 15 seconds. Say retrieving trail line. Retrieving trail. [00:59:09] Speaker B: Breathing heavily. [00:59:09] Speaker A: Retrieving trail line. Just get rid of the thing. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Donate it. We're. Let's get out of here. That's awesome. And then Justin, you're just like, hey, this is how that was sick. Like, super, like, again, sigh of relief. [00:59:22] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I was pretty exhausted, so we turned towards Medford, and I just hate go around. [00:59:30] Speaker A: Nice dude. [00:59:32] Speaker D: Kind of take us off, and I see because we're as high as we needed to be, and, yeah, kind of just took a side relief at that point. [00:59:40] Speaker B: Yeah, what a great feeling. [00:59:42] Speaker A: You're like, oh, thank God that worked out. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Pulled it off. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah. Wait, so you. So, yeah, you don't have enough gas to go get Matt. Right. So you're going to the hospital. [00:59:54] Speaker D: We were thinking about it, but at that point, no, we had no. No more gas. Yeah, we did talk about beforehand, but there was no way. [01:00:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [01:00:05] Speaker D: I think took like, 20 minutes total. We just had no gas between trying to get to Medford and then. [01:00:12] Speaker A: What's in Medford? [01:00:15] Speaker D: Just gas. And we also had ems waiting for us there. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Nice. Cool. And then, Matt, you're sitting in the parking lot. Just watch the 65 fly right on by, huh? [01:00:26] Speaker F: Yeah. It was kind of a sigh of relief as well, watching them fly on. They were not coming towards me. [01:00:32] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:00:33] Speaker A: And you're like, hey, guys. All right. And then you had to turn to the weird car and be like, hey, can I get a ride to Medford? [01:00:41] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:00:42] Speaker F: I mean, that's basically what I did. I hitchhiked there. But before that, there's a little bit back and forth. Like Justin said, there's two different counties, and each county wanted them to land at the airport. That was inside their county, of course. So there was, are we going to Medford? Are we going to Klamath? Unfortunately, I was able to relay Justin's final decision to our ops boss, who then coordinated the fuel truck there. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Nice. That's awesome. And then. Yeah. So how did you get to the airport? [01:01:13] Speaker F: So, unfortunately, I guess I was in, like, the enemy territory. So the county that was not getting the drop off, so I had to hitch a ride with them, essentially, to the county line. [01:01:23] Speaker A: No. [01:01:24] Speaker F: Different star volunteer that then picked me up and drove me to the airport. [01:01:29] Speaker B: That is so rude. They couldn't take you the whole way. [01:01:31] Speaker A: Wow. [01:01:32] Speaker F: Unfortunately, no. I think they're also stretched in with resources, so they didn't want to send someone, like, an hour into a different. [01:01:41] Speaker B: Fair enough. [01:01:42] Speaker A: So how long was the drive, then? [01:01:45] Speaker F: I think it was an hour and a half. I'll be honest, the second half was kind of a blur because I was also feeling tired. [01:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah, you worked hard. [01:01:56] Speaker F: Sorry, go ahead. [01:01:56] Speaker A: I said you worked hard. That was a joke. [01:01:59] Speaker F: Yeah, I did work a lot of hard. It was a lot of coordination. Absolutely. Yeah. [01:02:04] Speaker D: He did move 400 pounds of gear from one truck to another. [01:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:08] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:02:09] Speaker A: Oh, so you didn't leave. You didn't donate that stuff either? No. [01:02:13] Speaker F: I did offer it to the guy in the sketchy car for a former marine, and he said that was the coolest thing ever. So, fortunately, he didn't, like, picked up rock. [01:02:24] Speaker A: That's awesome. Oh, man. Okay, so back to the helicopter. Thanks, Matt. You guys are flying back, and you land and coordinate fuel and, like, smooth transition. Everything after that went well? [01:02:39] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, there was a small discussion about hospital pads and stuff, but, like, single pilot at night time after the hoist, like, nope, I'll go there for. We'll turn on the lights, and we'll have a nice, nice, easy. Especially for broken tip bib. Yeah, yeah. Some of the other stuff, like, we were thinking about is to audie, as you know, is also a pilot, too, so he was backing me up. [01:03:04] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:03:05] Speaker D: So it worked out really well. [01:03:07] Speaker A: Man, that is really great backup. [01:03:11] Speaker D: So. [01:03:12] Speaker A: And then. So you guys land, and then are you way, like, what's the crew discussion as far as, you know, taking a splash of gas, turning the copter back on, and heading home? Like, were you talking about, hey, you know, I'm pretty smoked. Like, what was the. Were you guys thinking about heading home that night? [01:03:27] Speaker E: Taco Bell. [01:03:29] Speaker D: Yeah, we actually were super lucky. Our swimmer chief was. Hey. Was camping out in that area, so he actually came and grabbed Audi and branch and picked up some crunch wraps for the entire crew. [01:03:42] Speaker A: No way. [01:03:43] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:03:44] Speaker A: Supremes. [01:03:46] Speaker D: So, yeah, it was glorious. [01:03:50] Speaker E: It was glorious. [01:03:51] Speaker B: But did you guys fly the helicopter home, then shit your pants or did you shit your pants? [01:03:58] Speaker D: It was kind of simultaneous. [01:04:02] Speaker A: Oh, man, that is. Gosh, I bet that tasted good. Sweet. Sweet. So then. So then you waited for. You waited for Matt? Matt rolled up, and then you guys boogied home? [01:04:15] Speaker D: Yeah, pretty much. I called off and told him that I was in Medford waiting on my copilot. Luckily, Matt had the aircraft commander phone, so he had already known that nice. [01:04:26] Speaker B: Nice job, Matt. [01:04:27] Speaker D: Which cut down a lot of comms. [01:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:31] Speaker D: And yet she went and grabbed some crunch wraps. We weighed the mat, got all loaded up, and flew home. [01:04:41] Speaker A: That's awesome. Gosh, that is. What a great case. So then I actually, another question. This is just, you know, an interesting decision making part that we don't think about. After you guys landed back at home plate, were you bagged out? Because you were like, I'm done. [01:04:55] Speaker D: We didn't bag out, but we didn't have a lot longer on our duty anyways, by that point. Yeah, yeah. [01:05:07] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:08] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:05:10] Speaker A: Cause I've had, you know, I asked that question because I've had those cases where you. Where you. Where you fly back and you definitely did not meet the 6 hours of flight time, but you're like, hey, I'm smoked. I'm not launching again. Or like, hey, I'm really tired. We'll have a discussion. But, you know, I'm. It has to be, like burning babies in the surf kind of thing. [01:05:28] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think that's where we were, because we did our. We did our day trainer flight, and then we got that call. So by the time we landed, we were maybe five and a half hours total, so, yeah. Like, we would have more flight on us for urgent sar and close proximity, but, yeah, I think we were all pretty happy to be home, for sure. [01:05:50] Speaker A: Gosh. Nice job, guys. [01:05:51] Speaker B: Dude, that is an outstanding SAR case. [01:05:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm jealous. I miss search and rescue. I want to go do that. [01:06:00] Speaker B: Go to north. [01:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:06:02] Speaker B: Maybe you should end up in North Bend. They've been doing a lot of big Sar cases out there. [01:06:06] Speaker A: They have been? Yeah. There's this guy named Branch. Apparently, he picked this guy up out of the crazy surf. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Hey. Graduates a school and just gets all the big cases. [01:06:15] Speaker A: Everybody hates him. [01:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. That was awesome, though. [01:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:19] Speaker B: That was a really, really good story with a lot of different things going on. [01:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah. How long have we been recording? [01:06:24] Speaker B: An hour. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't feel like an hour. I'm just. I was hanging on every word. [01:06:27] Speaker B: That was incredible. [01:06:28] Speaker A: That was great. That was awesome. And this is like. And not to put you guys on the spot, but I'd really love it if you guys could pass around the phone and just go over one thing that you wish you did differently. Like, you know, after you digest the case, something that, you know, hey, maybe if we did it this way, it turned out better, or, you know, if we made this phone call or something like that. So I'm really curious to hear about that, and I know our listeners would be as well. [01:06:55] Speaker D: I think, for me, after seeing the case, I wish we would have had more information. I think they could have stayed with the lady overnight and then hiked her out the next morning. That being said, I don't think that the rescue team would have done that. I think they would have tried to hike her out that night, which would have, like, exposed the entire rescue team to more risk hiking her out through snow, rock and stuff. But makes sense. I felt very comfortable doing that, but it was obvious my command was not as comfortable as in that scenario. But again, I've, you know, somewhere around 1500 hours of goggle time, so it was not that crazy to me, but just something I thought about afterwards. [01:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's. I mean, most search and rescue cases kind of feel like that, right? Like, you know, you get on scene and the condition of the patient is not as advertised. Um, so I guess we can only ever operate on the information that we get because if we try to interpolate, you know, people could get hurt or, you know, or we end up doing stupid things because we think it might be worse. So I think, yeah, you know, you can only. Yeah, you can only operate. You know, you went in thinking head injury, back injury, compound fracture, like, in, you know, and massive exposure in the wilderness. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Like, you can't say massive exposure on podcast. [01:08:19] Speaker A: That's the one swear word I can't say. That's a good point. But, yeah, so, anyways, you can't. You have to operate with the. With the initial, you know, conditions that you get. So. [01:08:29] Speaker D: Yeah, and I think that's where we were, is we knew that she had been crawling for 6 hours over 3 miles. There was no other asset available to get her. And based on the information that we had, I still think it was the best decision. I just. There's some things that we could have done with all the information afterwards. [01:08:50] Speaker A: It really is like, once. Once you kind of go through the, you know, your first couple cases, an aircraft commander, you kind of learn the questions to ask to get more information, but it always seems like there's some other hidden stuff going on as well, so it's a learning curve. So, yeah, that. That's a great lesson, Matt. What about you, Mandev? [01:09:11] Speaker F: Maybe if I could lose a few pounds. [01:09:16] Speaker A: Go trash bags on a treadmill. [01:09:20] Speaker F: Yeah, exactly. Me and Justin. So Justin initially offered me the right seat when we first got notified. And then once he ran performance calculations and realized he might do some that way, he's like, I'll actually take right seat. [01:09:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:35] Speaker F: So we were on the same page pretty early, but we found out earlier that branch, after we dropped me off, didn't know that we were leaving me. Maybe if we made sure the whole crew was on the same page, that would have been better. [01:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Fog of war, man. Sometimes people are doing stuff in the back of the helicopter. Conversations are happening on the front. I think that's a great lesson learned, especially for you going through your aircraft commander syllabus, man. Sometimes we speak a different language up front. Folks in the back speak a different language. It's really, really important to get everybody on the same page. Yeah, that's great. [01:10:08] Speaker B: And, Matt, you're an AC now. [01:10:10] Speaker F: No, I'm hopefully putting my request soon. Whenever the Thano, aka Justin bench, puts. [01:10:16] Speaker B: Up, we're out that memo, brother. Yeah, I'm just kidding. [01:10:21] Speaker A: Sweet. This is going to be on your aircraft commander board, all of these questions. [01:10:27] Speaker F: Yeah, we had a good discussion with our CEO, actually, afterwards, because the whole weekend after this, I was like, I don't know if I'm ready to be in AC. Like, if I'm supposed to be doing this, I don't know if I'm ready. And fortunately, RCO has made it very clear that you didn't expect more junior acs. Almost basically anyone except Justin bench to do this. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely, man. I think I've definitely turned down more than my fair share of cases in Savannah, whether it be weather or just, like, too far offshore, not enough information. It's really empowering and definitely, like, you know, you're. You're. You are the, uh, biggest safety block for your crew, especially if you can say no to stuff like that. So. Cool. [01:11:13] Speaker E: Definitely. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Audie, what's up, brother? What do you got? [01:11:16] Speaker E: And I think, uh, one of the things that stuck out to me that I. That we definitely could have done better is when we were pulling out all the gear. Um, I've always thought about this, too. It's like, we should have pulled the swimmer seat out, too, all four pins, and just left the swimmer seat out there. It would have been a couple of more pounds for one, but more. So when we were pulling our survivor into the cabin, she kept getting caught on the frame of the swimmer seat, and we were having trouble getting her into position, and it just took up a lot of space. So, yeah, I would say one of the things that I do differently is get rid of that thing as well so you have maximum space to work back there. [01:11:53] Speaker B: It really is nice when you remove that thing because it kind of does turn into a little truck bed, you know what I mean? And even with those. Those little. The little nubs that kind of stick up that hold the rescue summer seat. [01:12:04] Speaker A: Like, and say nubs on the podcast. [01:12:08] Speaker B: The litter will still, like, maneuver over them, but, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one, for sure. [01:12:13] Speaker A: Honestly, I didn't even know it came out that easily. [01:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, four pins, man. And out she goes. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Wow, that's awesome. [01:12:18] Speaker B: It's really not much that's going to. [01:12:20] Speaker A: My tool bag, but, yeah, probably more. [01:12:21] Speaker B: For just maneuverability, man. [01:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:23] Speaker B: Especially the big old litter back there. That's a good one. [01:12:27] Speaker D: Good. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Sweet. Thanks for that, man. That's definitely going to my. My tool bag. I had no idea that that was a quick option. And. And, gosh, man, to have room back there to work, that'd be great. Sweet. Last but not least, branch, what do you got, man? [01:12:44] Speaker C: Uh, yeah, not for me. I think I definitely need to work on not being tunnel vision coming back, prepping stuff and everything and make sure I'm listening to everything that's going on and not kind of not spacing off, but being so tunnel vision on the task that I'm working on prepping in the back. [01:13:05] Speaker B: Hear that? [01:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you got your stuff to do in back, but, yeah, that's a great lesson learned. And, I mean, yeah, if you. If you keep. If you keep getting this many big cases, as such a junior swimmer, you might be a senior chief by the time you transfer, so. [01:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, remember, though, that, you know, it's easy for the swimmer to get a little tunnel vision. I kind of zone out because it's the pilot and the responsibility to get them where they need to go. So they go to the work and then come back. You know what I mean? It's easy to go to heads down, especially if you start working on patients and stuff like that in the back. [01:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:39] Speaker B: Oh, man. Probably not paying much attention. What's going on other than that. [01:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's awesome, guys. I think. I mean, for what it's worth, I think that was a pretty flawlessly run sar case. Decisions were made, you know, at the right time, and I think, you know, man, you guys crushed it. [01:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah. That was amazing. Thank. Thank you so much, guys, for sharing. I honestly was hanging on to every word. Luckily, Max is really good at guiding some of these conversations, and I can sit back and just listen. But, dude, that is one of the gnarliest, uh, more, uh, technical sar cases that I've heard about in a very long time. Um, so, really nice job to all you guys. Really, really cool to hear the story. [01:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah, crush it. If we could give flight suit Friday air metals out, we would. [01:14:25] Speaker B: You guys maybe should make a little baby air metal. [01:14:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:28] Speaker B: Send them out to the folks. [01:14:29] Speaker A: What's that bottle cap that you're wearing on your trops flightsuit Friday air metal. [01:14:35] Speaker B: It's worth. It's worth 5000 service wide points. [01:14:38] Speaker A: It is when Naxx and Nick said so. [01:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:40] Speaker A: And Uncle Rob. [01:14:41] Speaker B: Yes. So it is recorded. [01:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Sweet. Well, thanks so much, guys. Really appreciate it. Keep doing great things up there. North Bend and yeah. [01:14:53] Speaker D: See you next time for calling, guys. And honestly, it was the crew we had. It wasn't the decisions made, it was just the crew we had. It just worked out really well. So yeah, it was awesome getting to talk to you guys. And fastest one long. [01:15:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:15:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:15:08] Speaker B: Thanks, guys. [01:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Cheers. [01:15:10] Speaker E: Thank you. [01:15:11] Speaker B: See you, dude. That was pretty cool. [01:15:13] Speaker A: I miss. I miss it, man. I got pumped. [01:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So about the. The goggles, right? Like, um, you know, rescue checks part two. I think that's the first. [01:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Like Stowe goggles. [01:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah, goggles. Removing stow. Um, I think. I'm trying to think of the reason why, but obviously it's probably like if you knock them off. [01:15:30] Speaker F: Yeah. [01:15:30] Speaker B: Well, they will fall into the ocean or into. With the force or whatever like that. But I never really given it much thought beyond that. Like, you know, the benefits of hoisting with goggles. But dude, what a perfect case to actually pop them things on. Yeah. Like, you couldn't do it any other way. [01:15:46] Speaker A: No. And that's a veteran move. You can tell, you know, Audi's got some experience there. Like. Yeah, dude, he flipped him up, was like. Nope. Flipped him down. Game on. [01:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:55] Speaker B: Have you ever been on, on sorties where it's been that dark? [01:15:58] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, it is. It's spooky. [01:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:01] Speaker A: And sometimes, like, you know that they'll have the references like the trees look at. But when you're offshore and it's that dark, you have no references. You're just like, okay, would you rather. [01:16:09] Speaker B: Be over water or over forest with it being that dark? [01:16:13] Speaker A: Man, I have not been over forced or that dark, so I can't answer that. But I sound like he had pretty good visual references. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess if you have your light up. Right. But at least right off the nose, maybe. [01:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:24] Speaker B: Or like, wherever your lights pointed. [01:16:25] Speaker A: Any. Anytime that happens, it's spooky. [01:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. God, that was a good one. [01:16:30] Speaker A: Pumped. [01:16:30] Speaker B: I'm gonna be pumped about that one for a while. [01:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:32] Speaker B: That was really, really cool to hear. [01:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:34] Speaker B: Just different, you know, like, decisions were made. [01:16:38] Speaker A: Yes. [01:16:38] Speaker B: And not the same decisions that are made very often. [01:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:45] Speaker B: You know, so. [01:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And for those listening, we get these cases because people reach out and it wasn't, I don't think it was the crew directly that reached out, but somebody was like, hey, J. Bench just had a sweet case and we reached out to him and agreed to come on. So please, please, please, you know, global email, send us cases that happen. Yeah, you can. If you have our cell phone numbers, you can text us. If you're ripping through a p course and you see us and you know of a case, you can tell us. Please just keep telling us about these cases because this is our favorite stuff to record. [01:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're coming through for a p course and we can. We can pop a little mic in front. Front of you and. [01:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:22] Speaker B: And some headphones and beer. Sit you down. Yeah, beer. [01:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll pay for. It. [01:17:25] Speaker B: Will be supplied for sure. [01:17:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:27] Speaker B: That's the best way to do it. And if not, we can get you on the cell phone, you know, a little Colin, I don't know. [01:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Wherever that is the technology, we will use it. [01:17:36] Speaker B: We are using so many technologies right now. [01:17:38] Speaker A: It's great. [01:17:38] Speaker B: It's insane. But that was a good one. [01:17:42] Speaker A: Enjoyed it. [01:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Till next time. [01:17:44] Speaker A: Till next Friday. [01:17:45] Speaker B: See ya later. [01:17:48] Speaker A: We say goodbye but never let go we never die. Cause you can't save every soul gotta take every chance to show that you're. [01:18:06] Speaker B: The kind of man who. [01:18:09] Speaker D: I'll never look back never look down. [01:18:13] Speaker B: I never let go.