The call came in a little after 9 p.m. on September 5: a medevac was needed for two badly injured wildland firefighters in Northern California’s Trinity Alps, in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
It wasn’t unexpected. Fighting fires in the backcountry was a dangerous job, and the 2019 fire season was well underway. Lightning had already ignited 124 blazes across the region in September, including 18 in Shasta-Trinity alone.
What was surprising was who picked up the call: the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay in McKinleyville, about 58 miles west of the firefighters.
The helicopter rescue team on duty—aircraft commander Derek Schramel, 36; copilot Adam Ownbey, 32; rescue swimmer Graham McGinnis, 34; and flight mechanic Tyler Cook, 23—were just settling in for the night when they were summoned to the command center.
They went over what little information they had. Two wildland firefighters, part of a 20-person crew employed by a private company under contract to the U.S. Forest Service, had been hit by a rolling boulder: one in the head and neck, who had been knocked unconscious for approximately 30 seconds, and the other in the leg, whose femur was shattered.
The pair were stuck on a steep slope at about 5,000 feet, close to the fire line and miles from the nearest major road. Carrying them out would be next to impossible—the ground was covered with rocks and downed trees—and could put everyone’s lives at risk. The crew’s leader—whom the Coast Guard would call the incident commander throughout this ordeal—said on the radio that both men were in bad shape. He was worried that the one with the broken leg might not survive the night.
Two agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, were contacted to perform a search and rescue mission; the CHP was deterred by the risk involved. The incident commander was desperate.
Coast Guard helicopter rescue teams train endlessly to do things like pull sailors off floundering ships in stormy seas. In fact, Schramel and the others had spent the afternoon practicing hoists off a 47-foot Coast Guard motor lifeboat. Teams like theirs are encouraged to think
