Bethel’s new Black Hawk helicopter flies over ice road traffic on Monday Apnear Bethel, Alaska. The Bethel Fire Department response area is about 44 square miles. “But this is actually the first time our department’s done cross-training where we actually involved a real flight.” “We’ve done emergency operations training, simulations, if the Black Hawk crashed and how to shut down the fuel, shut down the engines and extricate the crew member,” Solesbee said. This type of integration, teamwork and realistic cross training is really important in remote Alaska. “Just because sometimes when we do have plane crashes in the region, they do ask us for medical personnel for EMTs, to respond with them,” Solesbee said. So, Bethel’s Fire Chief Darren Solesbee, another firefighter and two EMTs went for a ride to get get comfortable with the aircraft. “We typically will pick them up, bring them here to the hangar, and then the fire department and EMTs will bring an emergency vehicle to the flightline and we’ll transfer the patient from our helicopter to their vehicle,” Osborn said.īut that takes time, and when someone is severely injured or survives a crash, every second counts. So when they pick someone up in distress, they have to transport them to the nearest hospital or medical clinic. The flight crew doesn’t have an Army medic or emergency medical technician, but they respond to search and rescue calls. The pilots of Bethel’s new Black Hawk helicopter at the controls. “We flew over the Kuskokwim checking for any kind of flooding in addition to flying the area that the Bethel Fire Department covers,” Osborn said. The 29-year-old copilot from Anchorage is stationed at Bryant Army Airfield, but travels to Bethel to help out. “This morning, we were flying some of the local firefighters and EMTs for familiarization of the area from the air,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Morgan Osborn. On Monday, Bethel’s emergency responders took a ride with a few pilots from the National Guard. The goal is to speed up search and rescue operations in the region. (Dean Swope/KYUK)Īlaska’s Army National Guard recently sent a Black Hawk helicopter fitted with a rescue hoist to a permanent station in Bethel. Bethel first responders check out an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter permanently stationed in Bethel on April 24, 2023.
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