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Chopper. Whirly bird. Angel. All were names for the helicopter which represented the greatest
single auxiliary development of the Korean War. The number of lives saved as a result
of the helicopter evacuation is a dramatic example of teamwork, coordination and skill
and the broken terrain of the Korean countryside, made the continued use of helicopters particularly
successful. From the early days of the war, helicopters were used to evacuate the critically
wounded to rare area medical facilities where careful and more extensive treatment could
be given the wounded. Few innovations have impacted boots on the
ground as much as blades in the air. This module will reflect on early helicopter use,
their present day implementation and the cutting edge of innovation. The intent is having you
the viewer, envision their future. The helicopter has proved itself for scouting
large fires at slow speed and close to the ground. It has delivered firefighters, tools,
supplies and crews from canyon bottoms to ridge tops in minutes, when travel by roads
or trails required hours. Yes, the helicopter can do many jobs. Thatís why itís almost
in constant demand on forest fires. Troops packing machine guns to firefighters
packing chainsaws have looked to the sky for the promise of helicopters for greater efficiency
and effectiveness. This is fueled our imaginations and willingness to consider new strategies
and tactics. While many ideas from helicopters of early years continue to this day, others
had been disregarded. Why do you think some ideas have come and gone while others remain?
Another specialized use of the helicopter, is the hose lay. With a hose dispensing tray,
the helicopter is capable of laying up to 2,000 feet of lightweight fire hose over brush
or timber covered terrain. In this fire situation, a ten man crew is
needed to construct a fireline in an inaccessible sector. Since there is no helicopter near
this sector, a call goes out for a helitack specialist to construct one. After high level
and low level passes over the proposed site, a safe jump spot is selected. A cargo sling
containing a power saw and tools is dropped. Then the crewman makes a helijump to reach
the ground. At the pilotís get ready signal, the helitack crewman unfastens his safety
belt, steps out on the landing gear and readies himself for the helijump. At the pilotís
jump signal, he steps off, lands on his feet, rolls naturally and remains prone on the ground
until the helicopter is safely away. During the time the helispot is being constructed,
the helicopter may drop liquid retardant on a spot fire or hold the fire in check until
the firemen arrive. Consider which innovations are relatively
new to the use of helicopters on incidents and what just may be around the corner.
To help facilitate such thinking, letís listen in on the experiences of four current employees
from two different agencies. My name is Eric Graff. Uh, everyone calls
me Easy. Uh, been in fire for 13 years. Been with Grand Canyon Helitack for ten of those
13 years. Before that, originally grew up in Casper, Wyoming. Uh did BLM crew engines
and fuel crews back there. Um currently Iím the lead helitack and a paramedic for the
park. Um been a paramedic for almost four years.
My name is Jackie Renn. Iím from the Grand Canyon, born and raised. Iíve been in fire
for eight seasons. Just finished my fifth season here on Grand Canyon Helitack. I love
being here. Iím a paramedic and Iím getting ready to recertify so Iím barely a two-year
medic and I wanted to keep going. Uh largely since Iíve been working with them
since 2005, itís been the increase in capabilities for medevacs and extraction capabilities.
With some new technologies, new belly bands and then just getting other crews, not just
us, more familiar with medevacs and medical all emergencies off the fireline, I think
itís come a long ways since. Itís still got a long ways to go, thereís no doubt about
that, but weíre getting there itís gonna provide a better product for people on the
ground. Get people to a fire faster. And then they
started getting used more in the EMS aspect where you were noticing people getting hurt
on the fires. We gotta increase our safety buffer area and we needed. Helicopters help
get people to definitive care faster and in order to save lives, we needed to incorporate
more aircraft into the situation. So going from just EMS being able to land on a fire,
weíve now moved forward to having hoist ship, uh short haul capable ships such as here.
And I think thatís gonna continue to grow. I think weíre going to continue to evolve
more and weíre gonna see more short haul in the future. I think other agencies beside
the Park Service are more so gonna get involved within the fire world on supporting short
haul. Itís gonna get a individual out quicker if thereís no landing zone on site and itís
gonna get that person to definitive care
a lot faster. This year we uh were on the Big Meadows Fire
and we were working extraction capable uh helicopters while we got the order. On this
document on the Lessons Learned Center was the cardiac event there Big Meadows um where
a hotshot went down and had a cardiac event. The crews did a wonderful job of starting
CPR in the first minute as well as getting a AED along the line there within I believe
they shocked him within seven minutes of him collapsing. Got a pulse and respirations back
and uh actually came around a little bit. What our role was was basically supporting.
First thing in the morning we flew off the helibase and into the helispot and myself
plus another paramedic and our helicopter manager trainee ran up to the scene and helped
just facilitate his transport out. We had enough area luckily at the helispot to order
a Life Flight out of Denver and they flew directly to the fire to the helispot. The
timeline actually worked out real well where we letter carried the patient all the way
just as the Life Flight was landing. Transfer the patient. The patient to the hospital.
We were in the hospital like an hour and 15 20 minutes from collapse to enroute to the
hospital, so. This crew for some reason, um largely cuz we get more opportunity than most
uh, thereís always a medical ship on assignments and itís, ya know, we get a lot of practice
here at the Canyon of doing medevacs and doing transitions from fire work to medevacs.
So, Iíve been a short haul rescuer for four seasons now and my first rescue came in during
my first season that I was short haul qualified. Went up to Zion Park for an individual who
was jumping across rocks and fell and actually broke his femur. Had a femur fracture. It
was on a place called Angelís Landing up in Zion National Park. When you get up there,
it can look a bit sketchy from the air, itís just like this long, thin ridgetop where one
sideís a 1,000 foot drop off and the other sideís just kind of slanted but just teeters
off so itís not that bad. So, I went up there with my spotter and pilot and confirmed that
I was OK taking the short haul. We went down. We configured, we couldnít land at the site
which is what we like to do, but we couldnít land just given the location and thereís
no way of actually putting a ship on top of Angelís Landing. They reconfigured, they
took me up, they inserted me. I made sure that the patient was packaged and then they
just hovered and did a little flap around and by then I was ready with the patient.
They came back in, grabbed us both, we hooked up and we went right down. It was a quick
and easy operation. The biggest part of the short haul is the planning, but the actual
short haul itself goes really quick and really swiftly.
My nameís Alexander Zimore. Iím an agent with Office of Air and Marine. My title is
Air Enforcement Agent and Iíve been an agent for approximately 11 years.
Hi my name is Eric Hughes. Iím an Air Extraction Agent with Department of Homeland Security
Customs Border Protection Office of Air and Marine. Iíve been on the agency for five
years. Iím a pilot both Black Hawk and A-Star as well as a first master and a rescue lift
operator. Well, particularly with medical itís been
a huge growth. Once again, ya know, some years ago when I first came on staff, pretty much
all we had available to us was landing an aircraft in the field, which we can run into
all kinds of problems. Rotor strikes, belly strikes with rocks to slight progression where
we had rope hurst masters, hooking a rope up into the aircraft, deploying them out,
deploying EMTs and paramedics, working with the ground agents and then still having to
land the aircraft in the safest possible area where then we would get the patient and load
them in the aircraft and fly away. To progress even further where we would short haul long
line the patient connected to the bottom of the aircraft and then flying them away. To
where we are now where we have the hoist. The hoist is just an amazing system to where
we can hoist an agent down, an EMT or paramedic, and work on the patient, connect them to a
basket, um, put the hoist back down and lift them both up into the aircraft. Transit them
to a hospital or the nearest Life Flight or some kinda EMS on the ground.
When I first started working with the CBP, um, we didnít do very many rescues at all
with the helicopter platform as far as the short haul capabilities and the horst operations
and the rescue hoist. In the last three years weíve amped up our program, become fully
operational in both the helicopter rope suspension techniques um as well as the hoist which is
right above my head. Um for rescue hoist operations. So weíre able to support a lot more people
in various canyons throughout Arizona to uh back to rescue.
Eric, could you explain the operations and procedures involved with horst rescue operations
and short haul? Sure, uh, right above us we have our fries
bar, which is a Black Hawk model, uh, UH-60. Uh, so what we would do is we would pull out
the fast bar and connect the fast rope. Uh, itís about 55 feet in length. We would then
uh perceive to hover right above the subject or suspect that we were apprehending or rescuing.
Uh, at that point in time we would come to about 20 feet. We would send out two to three
ropers, usually an EMT uh on the scene to assess the situation. Um, we would then connect
them to an ARV which is an Air Rescue Vest if theyíre mobile. If theyíre not mobile,
we would send down the litter. Uh, we would connect the litter to the bottom and do a
short haul to an area where we could actually land, pick up the subject or suspect and put
them in the UH-60 for transport to uh the closest facility for medical purposes. And
that would be Hearst operations, so we can rappel in or we can fast rope in through the
fries bar right above our head. Uh usually we would rappel in an area thatís taller
than 50 feet uh if weíre unable to get the fast rope in there we would set up a rappel
system and go down on a rappel uh to the area, assess the situation and go from there for
a short haulÖor whatís necessary. Then we have the hoist which just came on board operationally
about two years ago and this last year weíve used it probably 50 to 100 times for rescues
in Arizona with countless footage inside. So this hoist here uh makes our job a lot
easier uh with those taller, higher rescues. Weíll send down an EMT as well as one or
two other agents for tactical situations, assess the situation and then go ahead and
send the suspect or the subject. If we need to send down the litter, we would send down
the litter as well just depending on how bad off the uh customer is. A lot of times we
deal with US citizens that fall in canyons, break their leg, uh compound fractures, uh.
Itís gonna take three to four hours for ground agents to respond or local EMTs so we will
drop in usually within 15 minutes, assess the situation, send in an EMT in and um and
rescue and drop them off either in an ambulance or an UMC which is a trauma one, level one
trauma. How do you think having a helicopter on an
incident effects the strategies and tactics used?
Well, the strategies and tactics can only be supported by what logistically we can do
and helicopters are a large part of that uh whether itís supplies or medevac capabilities,
bucket support, depending on what the mission is and what the terrain and other variables
are always constant with fireline activities, the strategies and tactics are derived from
that. One thing, uh, we get recommend through our
training academy here a lot of times is our professionalism when it comes to slowing things
down when we have emergencies and I think we can take that in the fire realm quite easily
whether, you know, itís a WUI situation or itís a medical situation or just evolving
fire. Itís OK to back things off and slow things down. And even say no at times. Uh,
I think thatís a big lesson that takes a long time to learn but it can.
A large part of where we get the issues when it comes to medical situations um is largely
with teams than it is the difference between helispots versus medevac sites. If you look
through the IHOG you look through policy, thereís no such thing as medevac sites um
and we seem to argue with most teams. Some teams donít do it, some um, large teams came
out with it after Dutch Creek as a form of mitigation coming up with the term medevac
site. And I donít know where it got started and thatís OK, but really, we focus on is
it a helispot or is it not. If itís a helispot then we can land in it all day long as a medical
emergency. If itís a medevac site, we donít like that term, when I think medevac site
itís either helispot or itís extraction and weíre gonna go short uh capable and possibly
do a short haul. Sometimes a landing is more risky or has a higher risk than a small short
haul would do, or doing a more appropriate thing a lot of times is just approving the
medevac site to a helispot and taking a crew and just taking an hour. If they think itís
that close to a medevac site, then it usually doesnít take that much improvement to make
it a full fledge helispot and thatís uh, thatís one thing we seem to battle with uh
quite a bit and a large part of that we donít like is the transfer of risk. We understand
that the ground forces like the idea of a medevac site because it gives them mitigation
in case one of the personnel gets hurt. What we donít like is itís kinda transferring
that risk to the air crew saying itís not good enough for a helispot, but in case of
emergency, you may be able to use it once is kinda the idea behind the medevac site.
Well now youíre just taking that risk and youíre taking a little bit from the ground,
but youíre putting it on the air crew and now the air crew has to decide during an emergency
situation which a lot of people donít do a whole lot of medevacs, uh to be a little
bit amped up, and try to force something when it could turn catastrophic.
A significant priority for helicopters on incidents has been response to medical emergencies.
Each of these emergencies differ in the extent of the emergency or illness as well as the
terrain the patient is in. This has encouraged a wide range of tools to engage various situations
while the safest approach continues to be having the helicopter set down on an improved
helispot, this is not always feasible and still include risks. In response, the National
Park Service has adopted the use of short haul techniques for extraction on many of
its helicopters. The Office of Air and Marine has also made widespread use of this technique
throughout the rugged country of southern Arizona. As you gear up for the season, lets
appreciate the remarkable tool that helicopters have become and lets envision their future
through the unique capabilities they offer.