At 5:30 p.m. on March 22, the Tennessee National Guard and the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were alerted that there was a stranded hiker in a remote part of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
The hiker was near the trail at the Ramsey Cascades waterfall within the park, was injured, and required medical evacuation. The Great Smokey Mountains National Park covers half a million acres and receives about 14 million visitors a year.
After receiving the alert, the Tennessee National Guard began to prepare, and the UH-60 Black Hawk flight crew began to prepare the helicopter for flight. At 7:20 p.m., the rescue mission received the necessary authorizations, and the crew departed from Joint Base McGhee-Tyson, flying directly to the hiker's location.
It wasn't long before they were able to identify the injured hiker, and park Rangers who were helping on the ground. At 7:45 p.m., the crew chief, Sgt. Christopher Burke lowered their two flight paramedics, Sgts. 1st Class John Sharbel and Giovanni Dezuani using the helicopter's hoist.
Once on the ground, they began their medical assessment and prepared the hiker for extraction before all three of them were hoisted into the aircraft. The pilots immediately flew to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville and landed at 8:30 p.m., delivering the hiker to awaiting emergency room doctors for treatment.
Three hours from being alerted to delivering the stranded hiker to the emergency room was all in a day's work for the National Guard that day. No further information has been released about the condition of the hiker.