A Wyoming Army National Guard helicopter crew rescued a 12-year-old Boy Scout and a lost hiker in two separate missions over less than 24 hours, pulling both out of the Bighorn Mountains – and capping the effort by putting out a forest fire.

Before the searches and rescues could begin, the UH-60 Black Hawk crew with C Company, 5th Battalion, 159th General Aviation Support Brigade, made a Sunday afternoon flight from its base in Cheyenne, near the Colorado border, to Sheridan, near the Montana border. Nearby, 12-year-old Benjamin Kellett had become separated from his Scout troop the day before in a mountain range featuring 100-plus-foot pine trees.

"The thoughts that are going through your head when you're flying around these areas, they're not good," said Staff Sgt. Andy Monnin, the crew’s medic. "I mean, you're thinking of a 12-year-old kid, 9,500 feet elevation, and it went down to 38 degrees Saturday night. So the thoughts in your head aren't good."

Civil Air Patrol and U.S. Forest Service teams had been in the air and on the ground for hours looking for Benjamin to no avail. The Black Hawk crew of Monnin, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Justin Study (pilot in command), CW2 Paul Buettner (pilot) and Sgt. Jordan Wisdorf (crew chief) were briefed at the Sheridan airport after arrival and quickly joined the search.
Benjamin Kellett

Benjamin Kellett
Photo Credit: Kellett Family

They also came up empty for the first 90 minutes. But around 7 p.m., a Wyoming State Helitack helicopter crew spotted Benjamin and radioed the Black Hawk with the location.

"From there, it's really go, go, go," said Wisdorf, 28, who just hours earlier had quickly found a babysitter for his 10-month-old daughter so he could answer the rescue call. "That's where my nerves kind of set in, because I'd never really done any kind of live hoist like that, in a real-life circumstance. I've done a lot in training."

With the helicopter low on fuel and no suitable landing area in sight, the decision to use the hoist came quickly. Wisdorf lowered Monnin to the ground, but both men lost sight of Benjamin as he ducked away from the noise and rotor wash.

"Once the medic got on the ground, we had to come up in altitude to get eyes on the boy again," Wisdorf said. "He was kind of laying down behind a rock. So the medic was looking up at me, and I'm pointing in the direction of where the boy is. The medic couldn't find him. There was such a thick cropping of rocks there, the medic got within five feet and still couldn't see the kid."

Eventually, reading Wisdorf’s hand signals as the helicopter hovered as low as 50 feet from the ground, Monnin found Benjamin, gave him a quick health check, and secured him for the hoist back to the helicopter.

Only later, in a local news report, would the crew find out Benjamin was afraid of heights.

"He did great," Monnin said. "I was very impressed."

Helicopter Wyoming Rescue Flight
A Wyoming Army National Guard helicopter lowers its hoist during one of two recent successful rescue operations in the Bighorn Mountains.
Photo Credit: Wyoming Army National Guard
Benjamin returned to the Sheridan airport and was taken to the hospital, but didn’t stay the night.

"So many people came out to help. We are grateful to each of them," the Kellett family said in a statement to Army Times. "Most of all we are grateful to God that he was safe. We are thankful for the soldiers and their willingness to look outside the search area."

The crew decided to stay the night in Sheridan rather than make a late trip home to Cheyenne. The next morning, the men found themselves back at work.

Smoke signal, with extra smoke

As early as the initial flight north, the crew was aware of another missing hiker in the region. But there was no call to help find the man -- whose name was not released, but who rescuers said was about 20 years old -- until after breakfast on Monday morning.

Again, state and local search-and-rescue personnel already had been combing the area. But this time, the Black Hawk added some in-house intel, taking Kyle McClure of the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Department along for the ride.

McClure helped direct search efforts, but the big break came in the form of a plume of smoke, which crew members saw about 90 minutes into the flight.

"It looked like a base of the tree was started on fire," Wisdorf said, adding that on the second pass through the area, you could see a man "waving his arms like crazy."

Again, Wisdorf lowered Monnin to the ground. Again, the lost party had no immediate medical issues. But this time, with the helicopter carrying a heavy fuel load and usable landing zones available not far from the location, the crew decided to take the Black Hawk down.

Monnin and the hiker set off on about a 10-minute walk, but not before some emergency firefighting.

Wyoming helicopter rescue group photo
Wyoming Army National Guard soldiers pose with other rescue-team members after a successful rescue mission. Back row, from left: Chad Stevens, Chief Warrant Officer Justin Study, CW2 Paul Buettner, Staff Sgt. Andy Monnin, Sgt. Jordan Wisdorf. Front row, from left: Melanie Geiger, Travis Fack, Tim Downham.
Photo Credit: Wyoming Army National Guard
"It was a good, maybe 10-foot-by-10-foot fire surrounding a pine tree, with a good foot thick of dried pine needles. He started a good little fire," Monnin said. "I did my best to get the 1-foot [high] flames knocked down, just using my boot and my foot. [I was] able to get it knocked down enough that I felt safe that we could leave."

They reached the helicopter, but the mission wasn’t over. The Black Hawk took off and landed closer to the fire, and McClure and Wisdorf got out with two fire extinguishers and a crash ax.

"Our little fire extinguishers we have in the helicopter, they weren't designed for anything close to what we were trying to do with them," said Wisdorf, who eventually got the fire under control alongside McClure. "It was also good training for me, because I'd never been trained on the fire extinguishers. I never actually get to go shoot it."

The crew picked up two of McClure’s fellow searchers via hoist on the way off the mountain, then finally made the long trip south.

"This was the most exciting 24 hours that I've had in my military job since I've been back from Afghanistan," said Monnin, 37, who deployed in 2011. "And the most rewarding."

Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.

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