NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST
Author’s note: Aircrews waiting to receive missions in the wake of Hurricane Florence grew eager to participate, often leading them to exceed the parameters of their mission sets and/or primary request. Army aircrews should always clearly define “mission overview” because it sets boundaries and helps ensure minimal deviation.
In late summer 2018, a last-minute request came down to find crews to send to North Carolina for hurricane relief. Hurricane Florence was sweeping through, causing mass devastation. I went with the excitement and intent of fulfilling my role as a relatively new member of the medevac community. I was eager to do the good work, as I was previously in a different airframe and mission set. Upon arrival, I was met with lots of red tape and bureaucracy as units descended on the coastal state from all over the country. We sat and waited for days, going to the operations room repeatedly in hopes we might be amongst the few to get picked for even a solitary mission.
As our wait endured, so did our contempt for coming to North Carolina in the first place. We grew bored and extremely anxious. We learned the operations room was cherry picking missions, handing them to the remaining crews of the host state for nice photo ops, which only fanned the flames. Eventually, we finally got a mission.
The comms between operations and aircraft were makeshift. We had handhelds that had a finite distance. Since this was an actual disaster emergency, every opportunity a crew had to get a mission, once it was complete, we were allotted the ability to “find our own work.” Of course, as good warrant officers, we did.
My crew’s mission was to fly down to a remote hospital, land in a parking lot across the street and retrieve a patient who was due for surgery at the University of North Carolina. That was defined and explicit, and we executed. The rest of the day was more so “implied,” as we understood we came all the way out here to assist these communities with rescues. So once that mission was complete, we flew low in search of people that may need rescuing.
We had success, as hurricane victims would wave out of a window or off a porch. We would hover over, lower a medic for retrieval and relocate victims to the nearest airport for safety. We eventually came upon a house that was flooded up to the porch. The family waved and we commenced with the rescue. After hovering out-of-ground effect (OGE) for several minutes, we retrieved a woman and her daughter.
The medic on the ground then radioed to inform us that the woman’s husband did not want to be rescued. He was unwilling to leave without his dogs. He requested that we drop off his family and he would be OK to stay and see after his dogs until the flooding subsided. I found that to be commendable and acceptable. I felt we would move on and find others in more need. Instead, as a crew, we decided to drop off his family and then return to rescue the man and his dogs. I assumed “dogs” meant just a couple of family pets. I was wrong.
At this point, we had become decisively engaged with this guy and his dogs. He was apparently a well-respected fox hound breeder. When all was said and done, and with amazing ground coordination from a water rescue squad, we rescued the guy, 27 dogs and a baby rabbit!
Our crew was elated, and we searched for more individuals to help until we found a house on a small hill surrounded by water, as if it was an island. My crew spotted dogs in a small, fenced area that they wanted to free so they wouldn’t starve in the kennels. It was clear the family that lived in the house had already evacuated. I was more interested in finding people to save, but after a short discussion, I was odd man out, so I decided to be a team player. After all, we are on an “implied” mission at this point.
Once again, we lowered a medic by the hoist just low enough to be able to kick a gate open. A dog jumped up at him and then ran around the side of the house. As I sat there intently holding an OGE hover at 200 feet with the precision of an atomic clock, the crew chief said, “Slide right.” I slid over to the next gate and began the same process when I noticed our rotor wash was kicking off shingles from the abandoned home. It was at that moment that I recaged and asked myself, “What are we doing here? What is our actual mission?”
In that same instant, the medic locked eyes with the original dog on the side of the house. He immediately shouted, “Up, up, up!” In a panic, the crew chief lowered the medic before he realized his mistake and pressed up on the hoist. By that time, the dog leapt and grabbed a full bite of our medic’s boot. The angry canine rode the hoist up another few feet, hanging onto a Belleville, before finally letting go and landing back on the ground.
Lesson learned
Problems don’t just happen. They usually stem from a series of unfavorable decisions. Had we experienced any sort of accident while trying to kick open dog gates, it would have been tough to justify. We set out with great intentions but wandered into undefined territory. Recaging after our first mission and redefining our overview would have allowed us to set boundaries and ensured minimal deviation. Fortunately, this mission only left us with an important lesson learned.