RALEIGH, N.C. - Two hikers missing since Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017, in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area were rescued Saturday evening by the North Carolina Helicopter and Aquatic Rescue Team (NCHART).
The hikers, who were uninjured, used a cell phone to contact authorities on Friday saying they were off the trail and needed to be rescued. The cell phone they used was a so-called "throwaway" and had poor location services, making it difficult for authorities to locate them.
Over 100 ground-based rescuers from two dozen local, state, and federal agencies were searching for the lost hikers day and night, and with severe winter weather fast approaching on Friday night, the chance of finding them alive diminished.
"With below-zero temperatures expected, time was running out," said North Carolina Emergency Management Director Mike Sprayberry.
Ground search teams did all they could to locate the stranded hikers, but rugged, heavily forested terrain and waist deep snow, made it extremely challenging. By Saturday afternoon, the weather was getting worse and extremely low temperatures were setting in.
At 2 p.m., Saturday, Sprayberry ordered the NCHART into action to find and rescue the hikers.
NCHART is a highly specialized team consisting of North Carolina Emergency Management, North Carolina Guard, and North Carolina State Highway Patrol assets matched with highly trained local emergency services personnel that form a mission-ready package for helicopter-based rescues.
The initial NCHART team comprised of a State Highway Patrol helicopter, a NC Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and three Charlotte firefighter rescue technicians (on the Black Hawk). The police helicopter would locate the hikers using thermal identification equipment and the Guard Black Hawk would fly in and, using a hoist system, lower the rescue techs and extract the hikers.
"Whenever we get the call to execute a NCHART mission, the heart rate goes up a bit," said Maj. Jack Potvin, a North Carolina Army National Guard UH-60 pilot, and 10-year NCHART veteran. "We train for this mission all the time. In fact just the week prior, we were training extraction techniques." But this extraction was not an ordinary one, Potvin said. "The extreme weather (cold and winds), heavily forested terrain, altitude and the pitch black night made this a mission like no other we had in a long time."
Potvin's Black Hawk helicopter would not be the only Guard aircraft involved in this rescue.
It was a Guard drill weekend (7-8 Jan.) and NC Army Guard UH-72 Lakota helicopter crews, based in Morrisville at the RDU airport, were scheduled for flight training. In an effort to always be ready and prepared to support NCNG's state partners, one of the Lakota crew planned a flight to Asheville airport and back as a part of drill training.
"We knew about the ongoing search and rescue mission near Asheville," said Capt. Christopher Arndt, a NC Army National Guard UH-72 Lakota pilot, and 5-year NCHART veteran. "With our capabilities and experience in NCHART missions, our commander authorized the training flight to fly to Asheville and back, with an intent to be available just in case NC Emergency Management needs us."
By the time Arndt's Lakota made it to Asheville and refueled, the NC State Highway Patrol helicopter that located the stranded hikers just before sunset, was forced to return to the airport and refuel. The NC Guard Lakota took over the search.
"We are fortunate that all these resources were trained and available, and worked together to execute this extremely complicated rescue," said Sprayberry. "The key to the success of this response was teamwork from all the responders cooperating for the best possible outcome.
The outcome may have been a lot different if it were not for the forward thinking of NC Guard Lakota aviators and their commander in Morrisville.
"It was extremely cold out and pitch black," said Arndt. "We all were very anxious to find these guys and get them out of danger. We searched the area the Highway Patrol crew gave us for about 20 minutes, then at 7,500 feet and about two miles away using our thermal identification equipment we spotted a flickering light, like a strobe. When we zoomed in on to that light, we discovered that it wasn't a strobe. It was a faint Bic lighter flame from the lost hikers"
The hikers desperately trying to signal the helicopters were relocated and the NC Guard UH-60 Black Hawk and rescue technicians swooped in and hoisted the hikers out of the forest to waiting ambulances at the Asheville airport.
From start to finish the rescue took about one hour from when the NC Guard Lakota got the call to take over the search.
"It's an amazing, exhilarating feeling when the mission is complete and lives are saved," said Potvin. "NCHART is a proven lifesaving program, and in my opinion, illustrates clearly the team efforts and dedication of our state emergency response partners from emergency management, the Highway Patrol, the Guard and local first responders."
NCHART, the first of its kind in the nation, is in its 14th year serving North Carolina residents. The program is credited with over 80 successful rescues.