Tennessee National Guard rescues hiker in Smoky Mountains

KNOXVILLE — On the evening of May 20, a UH-60 Blackhawk medical flight crew from the Tennessee National Guard rescued a hiker suffering from a severe illness in a remote part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. ,Shortly before 7:00 p.m., eastern time, the Tennessee National Guard and the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were notified of a hiker requiring immediate medical assistance. The hiker was located more than 5,000 feet above sea level, at Icewater Spring.

TEMA approved the mission just after 7:15 p.m., and less than an hour later, a flight crew from the Tennessee National Guard’s Task Force Smokey took off from McGhee-Tyson Air National Guard Base to rescue the hiker.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Peter Neveu and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andres Salas were the pilots for the mission. Sgt 1st Class Cassandra Antes was the paramedic, and Staff Sgt. Daniel Bandy, along with Staff Sgt. Ernest Harlan, were the crew chiefs.

The UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter arrived on scene about 20 minutes later and quickly performed a hoist rescue to carefully lift the hiker into the aircraft.

The crew transported the hiker to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, shortly after 9:00 p.m. The entire operation, from first notification of a potential mission to patient handoff at the hospital, took about two hours.