ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter returns to Aberdeen Proving Ground after providing help to areas of North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene where many victims were cut off with no way to communicate.
“Making sure that everybody is in contact with their loved ones,” said MD-HART Crew Chief Sgt. Kyle Bunch, “People that we do evac—-making sure that we’re getting positive identification or names on anyone that we do relocate, where we’re relocating them."
The Guard’s vaunted Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team conducted 29 separate flights, rescuing 83 people, including 10 children and two infants.
They flew in concert with another crew manning larger aircraft that flew 120 tons of cargo an equipment to people cut off from the rest of the state who had lost everything, while rescuing people in the process.
“A retired Army guy came running down and said, ‘Hey, we have a hundred people up here that need get… we have elderly that cannot come to you so he made us an LZ in a parking lot. They knocked over trees and light posts so we could land the helicopter,” said Staff Sgt. Antonio Rodriguez, “The first set, we pulled 15… we had to carry them in the helicopter, because they could not walk up that little angle of the ramp.”
Some of the soldiers assigned to a Chinook helicopter are turning around and heading right back to Carolina, but they’re also taking some supplies with them—-supplies, which they purchased with their own money.
Their orders aside, this has become a mission of mercy and one which will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
“The crew and I, we were discussing it last night that this was the most rewarding and an honor to do,” said Rodriguez, “Americans taking care of Americans and helping each other. It’s great.”
