Falcon Air rescue demo day
When: 6 p.m., Saturday, April 16
Where: Haywood Rescue building in Canton
Who: For rescue and law enforcement departments and agencies across the region
Why: To learn about the search and rescue capabilities available through Falcon AirLink and HILERT

Over the past 30 years, Bob Twomey has found and rescued dozens of lost and injured hikers, bikers, campers, climbers and paddlers from the woods of Western North Carolina. But it’s the small handful of failed rescues that still haunt him.

“When you’re carrying someone out of the woods and they die in the stokes basket and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it, it’s really tough,” said Twomey with the Brevard Rescue Squad.

Most rescuers accept the remoteness of the Smoky Mountains as simply part of the job. Mountainous wilderness translates to remote rescues. Sometimes you just can’t get there quick enough. But for Twomey, the hurdle is not one he is willing to accept.

“We are still doing rescue the same way we did 30, 40, 50 years ago. That’s crazy,” Twomey said.

Ten years ago, Twomey began a serious investigation into new tools, equipment and technology that would close the gap in mountain search and rescue. Twomey put a helicopter at the top of his list of rescue needs.

Twomey put together a unit called the N.C. High Level Emergency Rescue Team, or HILERT for short. The special team was trained to do helicopter-based search and rescue.

There was only one catch. They needed a helicopter.

“Historically we have not had a dependable helicopter we could call on. We had trouble with quick access to a helicopter. So we have been limited in our ability to do search and rescue up until now,” Twomey said.

But two months ago — and 10 years since Twomey began drumming up support for advanced helicopter-based search missions — a helicopter finally arrived with the opening of Falcon AirLink, a commercial and charter helicopter service covering WNC. The owner and chief pilot, Bryan Neal, spent 20 years in the army flying Apaches and Cobras and teaching others to fly. He moved to the area in 1998 from Fort Bragg to take a pilot job with MAMA, the medical helicopter of Mission Hospital in Asheville.

The region was apparently desperate for charter helicopter service, as Neal has quickly racked up business for pleasure flights, sightseeing flights and private executive flights. The helicopter has also been hired to give rides for the day at fund-raising events, company picnics, subdivision openings and golf tournaments.

Rescue flights will be billed just like any other paying commercial passenger. For Falcon AirLink, that’s $655 per hour. It’s an outrageously inexpensive rate for helicopter service. Most helicopter companies, including hospital rescue choppers, charge thousands for a lift-off fee, plus around $40 an air mile. Twomey said it will be possible to bill a patient’s medical insurance for the cost of the helicopter service in some cases.

“That’s done routinely out West on park and forest service lands,” Twomey said.

But even without the ability to bill the cost to an insurance company, it’s a rate affordable to the family members of the missing person. Anyone, not just the local rescue squad or volunteer fire department conducting the rescue operation, can call for the helicopter assistance. For

instance, a mom whose son is lost in the woods with temperatures expected to plummet overnight could pledge to pay the cost of the chopper service to increase the likelihood of her son being found by nightfall.

“The beauty of this is anyone can call it,” Twomey said.

Often, calls reporting a wilderness emergency are vague, such as “someone fell from a waterfall in Shining Rock,” or “my friend went hiking in Standing Indian and hasn’t come back.”

It can take rescuers hours to find the person, Twomey said. With the helicopter, they can fly a search pattern above the tree tops, pinpoint the GPS coordinates of the victim and then radio the location to the rescuers on the ground.

“We can find them so much faster from the air and then they know precisely where to send the rescue team in,” Twomey said.

Aerial searches become more problematic in the summer, however, when leaves are out. In heavily forested areas, the helicopter can fly low enough to part the trees with the wind of its blades, opening up the vegetation. But that is significantly more dangerous to the pilot and crew and not a sure-fire method.

To solve that problem, Twomey hopes to find funding for a portable heat sensor device. It can pick up body heat, called a “thermal image” or “heat signature” from hundreds of feet away, even penetrating light vegetation. The unit can run $20,000 to $60,000 depending on the quality, its range, the age of the equipment. Without a portable heat sensor device, the chopper’s full benefits won’t be realized.

“If it saves one person’s life, it’s done its job,” Twomey said, referring to the price.

Another capability Falcon AirLink could provide is dropping equipment and supplies to the rescuers on the ground, speeding response time for rescuers.

“Normal pace walking through the woods is about two to three miles per hour. Rescuers are going to be busting their butt to get in there in a hurry. But we could still cut off one to two hours of access time for the rescuers reaching the patient if they aren’t having to carry the equipment,” Twomey said. “That can mean the patient’s life.”

Falcon AirLink also has the capability of dropping survival provisions to a victim on the ground, such as blankets, food, water — even a radio so the victim can communicate with the outside world while awaiting rescue.

Twomey envisions a day when a chopper can be used to lower rescuers on a scene and lift the patient back up. For now, Falcon AirLink’s first chopper isn’t big enough to handle that kind of work, but with the initial success of the company, adding a larger, second chopper capable of rappelling from is on the horizon.

“We have great goals and aspirations, and we aren’t there yet, but we have to start somewhere,” Twomey said.

As more people move or visit here seeking outdoor recreation, the number of wilderness emergencies will only increase, Twomey said.

“Every year there’s about half a dozen people in Western North Carolina who just fall off waterfalls,” Twomey said.

For more information, email Twomey at bTwomey@citcom.net or call Falcon AirLink at 828.890.4332 or see their website at www.FalconAirLink.com.