CONCORD, N.H. - A momentary break in cloud cover gave a New Hampshire Army National Guard medevac crew just enough time to save a stricken hiker in the White Mountains Dec. 19.
Patrick Bittman, 28, of Portland, Maine, was hospitalized overnight after a solo hike on Franconia Ridge turned into a near-death struggle against severe weather, according to Lt. James Kneeland of New Hampshire Fish and Game, which led the search and rescue effort.
“Extreme luck” is how Kneeland characterized the sequence of events that led to Bittman’s recovery seven hours after he called 911. He was just below the summit of Little Haystack, a thousand feet from Falling Water Trail at an elevation of 4,300 feet in an area known as Dry Brook drainage.
Bittman had set out the previous evening hoping to watch the sunrise from Mount Lafayette. “Deep, blowing snow” compelled him to retreat, but he lost sight of the trail. He told the dispatcher “his limbs were frozen, he was hypothermic and could no longer move through several feet of snow,” Kneeland said. He had no shelter.
Temperatures were in the 20s with winds above 30 miles an hour.
Conservation officers from Fish and Game and volunteers with Pemi Valley Search and Rescue Team were en route up Falling Water by 10 a.m. Flying from Concord, the medevac crew reached Franconia Notch 45 minutes later, but poor visibility forced them to land their Black Hawk at the nearby Cannon Mountain Ski Area.
It took more than an hour for the ground rescuers to cover the thousand feet from the trail, Kneeland said.
“Vegetation was extremely thick and the terrain was steep,“ he said. “Snowshoes were a must once rescuers left the trail.”
They reached the hiker at 1 p.m. At this point. Bittman “was extremely hypothermic,” Kneeland said. Rescuers stabilized Bittman in a lightweight emergency shelter known as a Bothy Bag and gave him dry clothing and warm fluids.
At 3 p.m., the clouds lifted enough for the medevac crew to attempt a hoist from a hover of 70 feet. They had waited four hours and were about to depart for Concord.
As soon as Bittman was secured in the helicopter, the cloud cover returned, Kneeland said. “The actual hoist took less than a minute and 30 seconds.”
It would have taken several more hours to remove Bittman by ground, time Bittman couldn’t afford, Kneeland said. “He was going downhill fast.”
Bittman was transported to Littleton Regional Healthcare just before 3:30 p.m. It was the eighth search and rescue mission for NHARNG aviators this year, and the sixth patient transported to a medical care facility.