Photo By Sgt. Kelly Boyer | (From left) Staff Sgt. Ethan Major, flight paramedic, Sgt. 1st Class Aaron DeAngelis,...... read more read more
A six-person crew from the New Hampshire Army National Guard’s Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 238th Aviation Regiment (MEDEVAC) unit received national recognition for a daring high altitude hoist rescue conducted in extreme winter conditions on Mount Washington on December 9, 2023.
Known by their callsign "WILDCAT 72," the crew was awarded both the DUSTOFF Association’s Rescue of the Year and Unit of the Year awards during a ceremony held May 2, 2025, at the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
“They were nominated, selected, and recognized for their exceptional professionalism in successfully accomplishing a very challenging and complex lifesaving mission,” said Mike Mudd, sales manager at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, who presented the Rescue of the Year award. “Their ability to perform a high angle hoist in very turbulent winds, reduced visibility, and extreme cold, while providing life saving medical care, was outstanding.”
The annual DUSTOFF awards banquet honors the legacy of medical evacuation missions while recognizing the courage, skill, and excellence of today’s MEDEVAC soldiers. The awards banquet capped a three day event in the Washington, D.C. area. The NH crew attended a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a U.S. Capitol tour hosted by Sen. Maggie Hassan’s office, which included a visit to the Senate.
“This was the kind of mission you sign up for,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Chris Wareing, who accepted the award on behalf of the crew of Wildcat 72. “But it’s also the one you train your whole career to ensure you do it right.”
On that day in December, the air ambulance crew braved extreme conditions, airlifting an injured, trapped skier from a steep slope in the Great Gulf Wilderness of Mount Washington amid erratic weather, powerful winds, and treacherous terrain. The skier had suffered an open leg fracture after being carried 500 feet down the mountain in an avalanche.
The mission began after New Hampshire Fish and Game (NHFG) Sgt. Glenn Lucas received a 911 call from the injured skier’s companions. When it became clear the rugged terrain made a ground evacuation impossible, Lucas contacted Col. David Mattimore, the NHARNG state Army aviation officer, to request aerial support.
Mattimore activated a response crew that included Wareing as pilot in command, CW2 Seth Eastman as co-pilot, Sgt. 1st Class Aaron DeAngelis, and Sgt. Audrey Monroe as crew chiefs, Staff Sgt. Ethan Major as flight paramedic, and Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Stone for operations and communications support.
“This wasn’t a situation where you send a helicopter just to try,” said Wareing. “We have a great, long standing relationship with NHFG, and they know our capabilities and only call us when they know we can really make a difference.”
Mount Washington, standing at 6,288 feet, is the highest mountain peak in the northeastern United States and notoriously has some of the most extreme recorded weather in the world. The Great Gulf Wilderness, where the patient was located, is a rugged glacial valley surrounded by Mounts Clay, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison and the high alpine gardens east of the Mount Washington summit. While popular for backcountry skiing, this area is highly avalanche prone due to its steep gullies.
Given the recent avalanche, the crew consulted Jeff Fongemie, Director of the Mount Washington Avalanche Center, to assess additional avalanche risk. He confirmed that the area where the skier was stranded was stable, allowing the mission to proceed.
WILDCAT 72 deployed to make the 75-mile trip north. Once over Airplane Gully, the crew faced brutal conditions, with temperatures at the summit of about 25 degrees Fahrenheit and wind gusts of up to 50 knots.
The crew located the injured skier with the help of NH Fish and Game personnel at Pinkham Notch, the patient’s companion waving from the ground, and a visible trail of blood cutting across the snow. The skier was stabilized by two fellow skiers who built a narrow snow shelf on the steep slope and applied a splint and tourniquet to his fractured leg while awaiting rescue.
With no possibility of landing, the crew was forced to conduct a high-risk, high-angle hoist from 80 feet above the mountainside. The patient was positioned on a four-foot-wide ledge in a turbulent wind channel. Violent downdrafts and crosswinds rocked the Black Hawk as Wareing and Eastman took turns on the controls to maintain a steady hover.
“This would be a difficult high-angle hoist,” Wareing said. “Seth had to maintain an 80-foot hover with visual references only on the right side of the aircraft, while I looked down almost 1,000 feet out the left side.”
“Torque was bouncing between 65 and 110 percent,” Eastman added. “It felt like we were about to fly into the side of the hill.”
Monroe operated the hoist, leaning out the cabin door to guide the flight paramedic, Major, onto the ledge with precise verbal commands.
“From the cockpit, I couldn’t see the hoist,” Eastman said. “I was flying based on Audrey’s voice alone as she directed me to where the hook needed to go.”
While providing verbal direction to the pilots, Monroe lowered Major onto the ledge with precision. On the ground, Major had to work as quickly as possible and was able to secure a tagline to the hoist hook and assess the skier’s injuries. He assessed and stabilized the patient's splint and tourniquet, then got him into the stretcher basket. After preparing the skier for extraction, he radioed that they were ready.
“When I go out the door, I have total confidence that my pilots and crew chiefs will get me to the exact spot I need to be,” said Major. “Each one of us quite literally puts their lives in the hands of another crew member every time we do this.”
“A mission like this doesn't have a successful outcome without a good team, a lot of trust, and a very safe yet aggressive training culture,” Major added.
Monroe brought the helicopter back into position for the hoist pickup. Eastman and Wareing took turns holding a treacherously unstable hover as gusts rocked the aircraft.
Despite the turbulence, Monroe maintained precise control of the hoist, lifting the patient and then Major, smoothly into the cabin. As turbulence continued to rock the aircraft, the basket jammed in the cabin door. Monroe and DeAngelis wrestled it free while the aircraft remained in hover.
“I was encouraging Audrey while she was working because that hook had to thread a needle in 50-mile-per-hour winds,” said DeAngelis. “It wasn’t just difficult, it was borderline impossible, and she did it four times.”
With the patient and crew safely on board, Monroe and DeAngelis secured the cabin while Major monitored the skier’s condition. WILDCAT 72 began its climb out of the Great Gulf, preparing for the flight to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. However, as the helicopter gained altitude, Monroe noticed the cabin door had jammed open, exposing the near hypothermic patient to freezing temperatures.
“With the help of Sgt. Glenn Lucas to clear a parking lot for us, we decided to land to unjam the door,” DeAngelis said. “Then we popped over the ridgeline and saw the clouds again, a solid shelf below us.”
“It quickly became clear we weren’t going to make it to the hospital directly,” Eastman added.
As conditions worsened, with cloud ceilings lowering, Wareing opted to transition to instrument flight. Instead of navigating unpredictable mountain valleys at night, they climbed above the clouds. They coordinated an Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach to Lebanon Airport while Stone coordinated emergency ambulance support despite multiple agencies already committed to other calls.
Upon landing, the crew transferred the patient to a waiting Lebanon Fire Department ambulance, which rushed him to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for further treatment. After refueling and debriefing, WILDCAT 72 navigated worsening weather conditions to return to base, just before 9:00 p.m., nearly nine hours after the initial call, completing their dangerous yet successful life-saving mission.
Fourteen months later, in March 2025, they received word that the patient was back on skis.
“We had to deal with a lot of contingencies on this mission, but the things that we train for make those difficult choices very easy to make,” Wareing said as he accepted their award. “We don’t do it for the recognition, so tonight, to be here and be recognized, is an incredible feeling.”
| Date Taken: | 05.02.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.08.2025 07:47 |
| Story ID: | 497111 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 273 |
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