By Robert Schaulis
Times-Standard
WHITEHORN, Calif. — Rescue crews were forced to airlift an injured hiker to safety in Shelter Cove this Sunday. The hiker, a 55-year-old man, fell nearly 50 feet down a steep embankment while attempting to cross a narrow land bridge near Little Black Sands Beach.
“Shelter Cove Fire Department responded immediately, with a duty officer, two engines and an ambulance,” a news release from the SCFD said. “Additional mutual-aid resources were automatically requested due to the technically challenging location. Responding agencies included CAL FIRE’s Whitethorn Station, the Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue Team and City Ambulance out of Garberville.
“Upon arrival, SCFD’s officer located the patient at the bottom of a steep embankment with minor to moderate injuries. Given the dangerous terrain, patient’s injuries and SCFD’s previous joint training with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and CAL FIRE, the Duty Officer determined that a hoist rescue would be the safest and most efficient option.”
A still from a video shows a Cal Fire’s new Fire Hawk helicopter, Copter 616, beginning its hoist rescue operation. The helicopter’s crew was able to lift the injured hiker to safety. (Courtesy of the Shelter Cove Fire Department )
Though the SCFD initially requested aerial support from the U.S. Coast Guard, which was operating a helicopter in the area, that aircraft could not accommodate the request because of “fuel limitations.”
CAL FIRE personnel told the Times-Standard that the helicopter involved in the rescue was launched from the agency’s Kneeland Helitack Base after personnel from Cal Fire’s Whitethorn Station had been called off.
Spokesperson Chris Curtis, a forester and member of Cal Fire Humboldt-Del Norte Unit’s executive staff, clarified to the Times-Standard that Helitack Captain Ed Peebles and Coast Guard personnel had been in communication before deciding that it would be safer to attempt the rescue with Cal Fire’s Fire Hawk helicopter.
“(The Coast Guard ) had been out training and they decided they didn’t have the fuel to risk responding to the rescue,” Curtis said. “For a sea-level rescue, both aircraft are functionally equivalent.”
“Fortunately, Cal Fire’s new Fire Hawk helicopter, Copter 616, was available and promptly accepted the rescue assignment,” SCFD’s press release said. “Copter 616 arrived on scene and executed a hoist rescue, safely lifting the patient from the hazardous terrain. The patient was then transferred to awaiting SCFD and ambulance personnel for assessment and transport to a local hospital.”
Curtis said that CAL FIRE was pleased with the efficacy of the Fire Hawk’s hoist capability. The aircraft has a built-in apparatus that can deploy up to three rescuers as a hoist operator coordinates with the helicopter pilot. Curtis also clarified that the injured hiker wasn’t taken all the way into the helicopter but was lifted and placed on safe ground.
“We’re pretty happy with the way our hoist operation can be deployed. … We don’t have to retool and change things around to effect an operation,” Curtis said.
The Sikorsky S70i Fire Hawk helicopter is the civilian version of the military Black Hawk helicopter. The agency recently upgraded its entire fleet to the new aircraft.
“I would like to offer that, in the lifetime of this helicopter, it will pay for itself many times over with saving lives, property and protecting natural resources of the state of California,” Humboldt-Del Norte Unit Chief Kurt McCray said at a ceremony celebrating the introduction of the new aircraft this June.
© 2025 Times-Standard, Eureka, Calif..
Visit www.times-standard.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
