Rescue Up North

Posted 28 October 2012
Photo by TSgt. Shannon Oleson

Two Alaska Air National Guard pararescue jumpers, or PJs, MSgts. Roger Sparks and Brandon Stuemke, made a late night parachute jump from an HC-130P King personnel recovery aircraft 160 miles north of the Arctic Circle on 28 October 2012 to evacuate a severely ill fifty-eight year old woman. The HC-130 crew, assigned to the 211th Rescue Squadron, the Alaska Air National Guard unit at JB Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, first ferried an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crew and two additional PJs to Eielson AFB, near Fairbanks, where the HH-60 was pre-positioned. The HC-130 crew flew Sparks and Stuemke to the cabin and deployed flares to illuminate their jump. The two PJs treated the woman for eighteen hours before she could be evacuated.

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