Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert

Posted by: KTOA

Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/01/08 11:12 PM

Below is an article about a desert rescue from the AOPA (Aircraft Owners & Pilot Assoc.) website. This is the only info I have but I bet the full story is very interesting -- and scary.



Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert
By Alyssa J. Miller

John Morgan and his wife Jan were flying their 2005 Husky A1-B low over the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on July 23 when they stumbled across what could have been a scene straight from the TV show CSI—a person lying face down in the sand with tire tracks all around.

“I told my wife, ‘That’s a body.’” Morgan ought to know. He’s a former police officer. “People die out there every year,” he said.

Although he was initially hesitant to approach the person in case it was someone pulling a prank, Morgan circled and marked the spot as a waypoint on his Garmin 396. Jan thought someone had just stuffed some clothes with straw.

Morgan had noticed a car about a mile and a half from the body and thought perhaps the person had broken down and tried to walk for help. Upon flying over the vehicle, he noticed two people and landed to see if a member of their party was missing. The two had no knowledge of the body.

Because there were no features in the desert, only tire tracks running in different directions, Morgan pulled up the course line on his GPS to head back to the person. This time, while they were maneuvering over the body, Jan saw a hand move.

Realizing the person was alive, they circled and landed about 40 feet away and then taxied up the Husky to put the man in the shade of its high wing.

“It was very hot out there,” Morgan said, explaining that the man was breathing short breaths, had cuts and blood on him, and sand in his nose. His sunglasses were about 30 feet away.

Morgan quickly tuned his aircraft’s radio to 121.5 MHz to call for help. An airliner flying overhead picked up his distress call and was able to facilitate communications to get a medical helicopter dispatched to the scene. Morgan later learned that his radio call reached farther than he ever anticipated because of the flat terrain.

The couple gave the man some water while waiting for the helicopter to arrive (it was coming from Reno nearly 100 miles to the south of their location).

“When we saw them coming, it looked like something from Vietnam,” Morgan said, explaining that because of the reduced visibility from the smoke of the California wildfires and sand kicked up by the rotors, they heard the helicopter before its light, and later the airframe, came into view.

Morgan helped the paramedics roll the man onto a backboard.

“The guy couldn’t move when we all tried to roll [him onto the board],” Morgan said, adding that the man seemed to be in a great deal of pain.

Morgan and his wife then took off, climbed to 8,000 to 9,000 feet, and headed to their home base, Minden-Tahoe, about 135 miles away. When they had spotted the man, they were actually returning from a vacation in Oregon.

At home, Morgan checked out BackcountryPilot.org, a forum he frequents, and found a posting from another pilot who had picked up his distress call, albeit broken, while flying over the Nevada-Oregon-Idaho border.

Turns out, many pilots had heard Morgan’s call for help and tried to respond.

While Jan thinks they were meant to find the man, Morgan said he’s a little more pragmatic. Even so, he admitted that if they had been 100 yards off course or even flying directly over the man, they wouldn’t have spotted him: “He was just off to the right far enough.”

And if they had been flying their Mooney 201 instead of the Husky for vacation, they likely wouldn’t have been flying low over the desert or been able to land and offer help.

“If it weren’t for small GA,” Morgan said, “people like that wouldn’t have a chance.”

Because of privacy laws, AOPA Online was unable to track down which hospital admitted the man or learn of his current condition.

July 31, 2008
Posted by: leemann

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 01:28 AM

Wow! hope he's alright.

Lee
Posted by: OldBaldGuy

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 02:47 AM

Interesting that he was hesitant to land at what he thought was a body, but had no problems landing near a couple of verticle folks. Glad it worked out for the best...
Posted by: Todd W

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 04:47 AM

Originally Posted By: OldBaldGuy
Interesting that he was hesitant to land at what he thought was a body, but had no problems landing near a couple of verticle folks. Glad it worked out for the best...


I thought that too.

Two people around a car that looked out of place and a potentially dead body... lets land next to what could be the killers!
Posted by: Nicodemus

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 01:08 PM

Wild... I'd love to hear the backstory behind this one.

Glad they saved the person.
Posted by: Jeff_M

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 02:50 PM

Originally Posted By: ToddW
Originally Posted By: OldBaldGuy
Interesting that he was hesitant to land at what he thought was a body, but had no problems landing near a couple of verticle folks. Glad it worked out for the best...


I thought that too.

Two people around a car that looked out of place and a potentially dead body... lets land next to what could be the killers!


There is an effect called pressure against judgment. This is where stimuli accumulate in such a way that their combined effect causes you to act against your baseline good judgment.

See any group of adolescent males for examples.

Jeff
Posted by: climberslacker

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 03:16 PM

Originally Posted By: Jeff_McCann
[quote=ToddW][

There is an effect called pressure against judgment. This is where stimuli accumulate in such a way that their combined effect causes you to act against your baseline good judgment.

See any group of adolescent males for examples.

Jeff


HEY!!

actually, I understand this phenomena, i actually saw it at my school sometime last year, there are diving blocks at the pool used by swimmers, and we were jumping off of them having a good time, then someone went up and the rest started chanting "BELLY FLOP! BELLY FLOP! BELLY FLOP!" and then they did, against their better jugement.

Its kinda like idea behind peer pressure but slightly different.

-CS
Posted by: Jeff_M

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 06:25 PM

Originally Posted By: climberslacker
Originally Posted By: Jeff_McCann
[quote=ToddW][

There is an effect called pressure against judgment. This is where stimuli accumulate in such a way that their combined effect causes you to act against your baseline good judgment.

See any group of adolescent males for examples.

Jeff


HEY!!

actually, I understand this phenomena, i actually saw it at my school sometime last year, there are diving blocks at the pool used by swimmers, and we were jumping off of them having a good time, then someone went up and the rest started chanting "BELLY FLOP! BELLY FLOP! BELLY FLOP!" and then they did, against their better jugement.


Oh, I can do MUCH better (worse) than that! It's a wonder I survived my adolescence at all.

Jeff
[King of stupid stunts]
Posted by: corpsman

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 08:50 PM

In reference to the comment on youth: I've long argued that with either a group of teens or a mob, the functional IQ of the "mass" is equal to the average IQ of the group divided by the number of people in the group.
Posted by: wildman800

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/02/08 09:06 PM

fIQ = aIQ divided by #pg

But would A. Einstein be able to read this equation,,,,I think so!
Posted by: KTOA

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/15/08 03:15 PM

Good news -- it appears the rescued person will recover.


Man rescued in desert is AOPA member's son
By Alyssa J. Miller

When John Kenny of Arizona read AOPA’s story about the Husky pilot who found a man lying face down in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert on July 23, he initially didn’t realize he was reading the account of his son’s rescue.

Kenny’s family did some digging and later pieced together that the man was their family member whom they hadn’t heard from for a few days. The man is currently recovering from a broken back in Reno.

“He saved his life, no question about it,” Kenny said of John Morgan, the Nevada AOPA member who found the man. As it turned out, Kenny was also an AOPA member.

As AOPA Online previously reported, Morgan and his wife Jan were flying low over the desert in their Aviat Husky when they spotted a man lying face down. They eventually landed, covered him with the shade of the Husky’s high wing, and raised an airliner flying overhead via 121.5 MHz to request a medical flight.

Upon learning the news that the man was expected to recover, Morgan was overcome with joy, shouting and laughing with relief. Morgan said that he plans to meet with the family this week.

“I’m just really, really thankful we were there,” Morgan said. “That’s just amazing. It just blows me away how it turned out.”

After all, Morgan explained, there are only about 600,000 pilots in the United States, and 415,000 of those are AOPA members. What are the chances that the man they rescued was the son of a pilot and fellow member? Then again, what were the chances that Morgan and his wife would be flying low and slow in that part of the desert, with the man lying just far enough to the right to appear easily in their flight path?

“Thank God for general aviation,” Kenny said. “If that fellow didn’t happen to be flying low and slow, it would have been a different outcome.”
Posted by: Hikin_Jim

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/15/08 04:09 PM

Does anyone know how the man broke his back in the first place?

No vehicle in sight, but no, there's one but the two people in the vehicle "had no knowledge of the body."

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
Posted by: Susan

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/15/08 10:42 PM

The two other people they saw were about 1.5 miles away, not so close.

Also, this article said, "The man appears to have jumped out of his car while driving on the playa."

(Or maybe thrown off his ATV?)

[http://www.recordcourier.com/article/20080725/NEWS/606020426/1062&parentprofile=1049]

Sue

Posted by: Hikin_Jim

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/18/08 10:17 PM

Maybe AOPA will post/publish something?

UPDATE: The only thing I could find out about the victim on AOPA's site was "Because of privacy laws, AOPA Online was unable to track down which hospital admitted the man or learn of his current condition."
Posted by: OldBaldGuy

Re: Husky pilot helps rescue man dying in desert - 08/19/08 01:53 AM

"...Because of privacy laws, AOPA Online was unable to track down which hospital admitted the man or learn of his current condition."..."

That is pretty much BS. Privacy laws allow the location and general condition (critical, serious, etc) of a patient/victim to be released. Or at least did when I retired...