Around midnight one late fall night, helicopter pilot Kody Henderson was toggling between night vision goggles and his natural vision as he orbited in toward his landing site: the top of Castleton Tower, a 400 foot sandstone pinnacle famous for its iconic silhouette and, for rock-climbers, unique summit.

That night, two climbers were stranded after they used the wrong anchors to try to rappel from the top, leaving them shy of the next set of rappel anchors. One climber had called for help from the summit, where he had cell service; the other was dangling part-way down the tower from his too-short rope.

While the night vision goggles made it easy for Henderson to see the terrain, they also distorted his depth perception. He had to keep peeking out under the goggles as he approached, waiting for his eyes to perceive the helicopter’s spotlights against the tower.

“Finally, when you get close enough, your naked eye starts to pick up this really creepy, cool, iceberg image of where you’re going to land,” Henderson said.

Henderson is a pilot for Classic Air Medical, an emergency air transport operation with bases in six states in the Intermountain West and Southwest. Crews often fly patients with urgent needs from one hospital to another with more advanced capabilities; other times they move critically injured patients from the scenes of accidents to medical facilities. They also assist in search and rescues and backcountry accidents – especially the crew in Moab. A world-renowned destination for outdoor adventure sports, Moab also sees its share of outdoor mishaps. Moab’s rugged terrain and unique scenery is popular with mountain bikers, hikers, paddlers, BASE jumpers and skydivers – as well as rock climbers.

When Grand County Search and Rescue and Emergency Medical Service staff got the call about the stranded party on Castleton Tower, they evaluated their options. The dangling climber needed help soon: The night was cold, and medical personnel knew hypothermia was a risk. There’s also what’s known as “suspension syndrome,” a potentially life-threatening condition that can develop when a person hangs motionless in a harness for too long.

Approaching and climbing the tower would take hours and be risky for everyone involved – maybe even too risky to undertake in the dark. First responders asked Classic Air Medical if they would assist.

Henderson remembers being on the way back from an interfacility transfer when the crew heard the radio traffic about the stranded climbers. Henderson and the two crewmembers on board had thought they were on their way home to get some rest, but they quickly pivoted back into mission mode.

Together, all the first responder organizations made a plan: The helicopter would shuttle search-and-rescue personnel to the top of the tower, where they would rig a rappel system to bring the dangling climber to the saddle below.

A helicopter can shortcut the complex terrain that makes ground travel, both by foot and on wheels, so difficult, circuitous and time-consuming.

“Instead of taking four to six hours, we can get the helicopter involved and be there in 10 minutes after we take off,” Henderson said.

While it’s a useful and effective tool, using a helicopter in the backcountry isn’t easy. Factors like wind, visibility, elevation, temperature and load constantly affect the machine’s capabilities. And in the backcountry, there are no landing pads. On the top of Castleton Tower, there was just enough room to get a helicopter touchdown on a relatively flat spot. “It’s pretty chunky up there,” Henderson said.

The operation went smoothly. Henderson dropped off personnel and picked up the climber who was waiting on top of the tower. Search-and-rescue members rigged ropes and descended to the dangling climber and helped him rappel to the saddle, where the helicopter returned to pick them up. Henderson said the two climbers were thankful, but drained. “You could tell they had just been totally mentally and physically exhausted,” he said.

Timing is often critical in situations that call for a helicopter. Moab base manager and flight nurse Corby Shaw said the crew is prepared to take off within 10 minutes of accepting a mission. Once they arrive on scene, they aim to conduct any necessary medical procedures, load the patient and be on the way to a medical facility within 20 minutes.

Flights typically have three people: a highly experienced pilot, critical care flight nurse and paramedic. Just to join the medical crew, candidates must have medical training and years of experience in the field, working in a hospital or with an ambulance crew with a high call volume. Then they have to train and test on the flying part of the job.

Sometimes, the crew hears back from patients after they’ve made a full recovery. Henderson remembered a mountain biker the helicopter crew rescued from the Shafer Trail, a steep four-wheel-drive road that winds through Canyonlands National Park. He’d had a bad fall, sustaining head injuries, and was unresponsive. Reaching him on the ground and transporting him to the hospital would have taken hours – too long to hope for recovery.

The helicopter could reach him much faster, and the crew could begin treatment on the way to the hospital. The helicopter cabin is like a miniature intensive care unit, equipped with tools to stabilize, monitor, and treat patients: There’s an ultrasound, a ventilator, an IV pump and a video-assisted laryngoscope, which can be used for inserting endotracheal tubes.

No room is wasted. Items are stowed against the back wall, on seat backs, and in ceiling compartments, as well as in a cargo space near the tail. The front seat, next to the pilot’s seat, folds down to a medical gurney for patients to lie down. Next to the patient area, seats for a flight nurse and a paramedic face each other, one looking toward the front of the helicopter and the other looking toward the tail. The occupants share knee space.

The crew weren’t sure how the injured mountain biker would fare, but later they received a long letter of thanks – he’d made a full recovery and was so grateful he’d lived to see his wife and kids again.

Moab resident Ryan Katchmar is also thankful for the Classic Air Medical crew. He’s a passionate BASE jumper, and he’s become very familiar with Moab’s terrain through visiting remote and obscure jump points. He supports the BASE-jumping community by helping the local search and rescue team respond to jump-related calls, sharing his local knowledge and technical skills. A few years ago, Katchmar needed a rescue himself.

“The worst thing that can happen when you BASE jump is that the parachute opens facing the cliff and then you run into it,” Katchmar explained. “That’s how people get hurt, and that’s how accidents happen.”

Katchmar’s parachute opened the wrong way when he was jumping in the area of Wall Street, a cliff close to town that’s usually busy with rock climbers and other recreators. Katchmar tried to turn his parachute around as he descended, which, he said, is standard procedure in that situation, but it wasn’t working. He landed on a ledge in the middle of the cliff – luckily very gently.

“My feet hit, and then I plopped down onto my butt,” Katchmar said. His lightweight parachute draped down the cliff in front of him; he reeled it in as he contemplated how extremely fortunate he was to have not a scratch on him.

Though unscathed, he was stranded 300 feet off the ground on a ledge he described as the size of an office chair. He was able to yell down to the ground to his companions but couldn’t do much else. Search and rescue was dispatched; the road was temporarily closed; responders made a plan to ferry rescuers to the top of the cliff and set up a rappel, first to Katchmar’s ledge, then to the ground.

It was the first warm day of spring, Katchmar remembered – the first day of the year he’d left the house without a jacket. He didn’t know he’d be stranded on a ledge for three or four hours.

“I was freezing up there,” he said, with a rueful laugh.

In an operation similar to the Castleton rescue, the helicopter shuttled rescue personnel to the top of the cliff where they rigged the rappel that brought Katchmar safely to the ground.

The helicopter can’t always reach a patient directly. The Moab Valley is a high desert with an elevation of about 4,200 feet above sea level. The Colorado River slices through canyons and buttes that form broken rims above the valley; higher still, the La Sal Mountains top out at close to 13,000 feet.

In addition to creating world-class outdoor recreation opportunities and breathtaking contrast in any vista in the Moab area, that complexity of terrain turbo-charges the constant calculations a helicopter pilot has to make in flight: How is the machine’s power affected by the elevation, the heat, the winds and the load?

The Moab terrain is incredibly unique, helicopter pilot Eli Maloy said.

“I’ve seen so much – I’ve flown a helicopter all over the western United States, British Columbia, Alaska – this is something special,” Maloy said. “Geographically, I think it’s the most variable area I’ve ever seen, ever.”

He described how the crew might be flying over a desert slot canyon in the valley and, a few minutes later, be looking for a landing spot in 8 feet of snow in the mountains.

And, he added, “There are so many places to get lost, get stuck, get hurt, that are so hard to get to.”

Henderson remembers a call to another BASE-jumping accident, this time where someone was hurt. It was close to sunset when a BASE jumper named Ammon McNeely leaped from a cliff at a spot called “French Kiss,” ready to deploy his parachute – but it opened incorrectly and sent him against the rock face.

“He went back into the wall and down into the talus,” Henderson said. “He pulverized both ankles.” Local Moab newspaper The Times Independent reported that McNeely had multiple fractures in his left leg, a fractured clavicle and a fractured wrist. His right leg was “hanging on by just skin.”

Ground crews dispatched, and first responders started hiking in to McNeely. The Classic helicopter responded as well, but there was nowhere to land near the patient – he was too close to the cliff face, and the boulders were too large. Henderson dropped off the medical crew as near as he could, and they hiked in and helped with treatment, while rescuers considered high-angle rope-rescue options.

Responders decided to call a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter with “short-haul” capabilities, meaning they can lift a patient from a location by attaching the person to a rope, rather than loading them inside the helicopter. That ship wouldn’t be able to conduct the extraction until daylight, however.

Classic medical staff, along with other first responders, stayed with the patient through the night, providing constant treatment and making sure he was warm, nourished and appropriately medicated to manage the pain of such severe injuries. Henderson shuttled supplies to the group on the talus slope periodically until dawn came and the state helicopter was able to successfully carry McNeely out.

McNeely’s right leg was amputated, and he now wears a prosthetic. He told the Times Independent that it took some training, but he recovered and was back to outdoor pursuits: long hikes, climbing and skydiving.  “I can’t even express my gratitude for those guys,” McNeely told the paper, speaking of all the rescue personnel. “I owe them my life.”

Henderson said it’s a privilege to work with the organizations that often partner with Classic in conducting rescues – Grand County Search and Rescue, Grand County Emergency Medical Services and the Grand County Sheriff’s Office.

While the Classic Air Medical pilots and medical crew clearly relish the excitement, challenge and gravity of their work, they acknowledge it can be exhausting at times. And some incidents are hard to absorb – fatalities or severe injuries, especially if they involve pediatric patients, or incidents in which the patient’s family or friends witnessed something traumatic. Classic Air Medical provides resources to help employees evaluate their own stress and fatigue levels, recuperate and process.

“The challenge of dealing with trauma is a big reason crew members are required to have such depth of experience,” Shaw explained. Facing adversity and problem-solving together forms a strong bond between colleagues. They all said their crew members feel like family.

“We really care about each other,” Shaw said. 

“It’s intense and sobering,” Henderson said, “but it’s super exhilarating and rewarding; I couldn’t really see myself doing anything else.”