Six boat passengers stranded on a sandbar for nearly 24 hours near Tuntutuliak were rescued by an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter with Alaska State Trooper assistance on Monday, June 30.
The open skiff initially sent out an alert when low on gas and stranded on the sandbar while navigating a place to refuel, according to Alaska State Trooper Trevor Norris, who was part of the rescue team. Passengers sent out a phone SOS alert on the morning of June 30 before their phone batteries died around noon and contact with rescuers was lost.
A rescue team from Tuntutuliak was unable to reach the passengers by watercraft due to high winds and rain in temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
A three-person Alaska Army National Guard helicopter crew and one Alaska State Trooper from Bethel were able to locate the passengers around 8:00 p.m. after around half an hour of searching.
Trooper Trevor Norris was on board and said that the passengers were difficult to spot in the storm conditions. The helicopter passed over the boat once without noticing. On a double-back, while preparing to return to Bethel to refuel, the crew were able to spot the family.
“We actually had, like, five minutes of flight time to be searching left when we saw them,” Norris said. “The crew then brought the helicopter down, and at that point we saw that there was actually six people in the boat when we were only looking for four — five adults and a toddler.”
The Black Hawk helicopter wasn’t able to land on the water or nearby ground. Pilots hovered the aircraft above the river as crew members waded through waist-deep water to transport the family to the aircraft. Norris said that the passengers appeared to be near-hypothermic from nearly 24 hours of weather exposure.
“They were just kind of floating in that flooded brush that they get down there. And there was some protection from waves for sure, but definitely not [from] all the wind and the rain,” Norris said. “With their current supplies, I don't know how long they’d have made it in that temperature and those conditions for that long. So definitely glad they're back home.”
Norris said that the crew rewarmed the passengers in-transit with blankets, removing wet layers and wrapping the most hypothermic in the crew’s own fleece layers.
Crew members from the Alaska Army National Guard who operated the helicopter on June 30 said that the rescue was carried out with large support from the local community, including Bethel Fire Department volunteers and ambulance dispatchers, who met the team on the ground back in Bethel. The family was immediately transported to the hospital to be further treated for hypothermia.
"This is kind of an ongoing theme lately too, like the collaboration between us about the fire department, the troopers, everybody," said CW 3 pilot Bryan Kruse. "It honestly is a team thing."
Looking ahead to the rest of the boating season, Trooper Norris said that it’s important to consider hypothermia, even in the summer months. When boating, he said that it’s important to check the weather, pack waterproof layers, and opt out of cotton clothing when possible, which can get cold when wet.
“Especially here on the Kuskokwim River, like, that's big water out there,” Norris said. “Going out prepared, like having just some emergency supplies, whether that's a dry change of clothes, even a way to just pitch an emergency shelter on your boat. You know, these guys had run out of gas. Taking extra gas is never going to hurt.”
Norris pointed out that lifejackets are more than just floatation devices — they can also be used to signal rescuers and as insulation against cold temperatures.
Norris also recommended investing in a satellite communicator GPS device, which allows for constant communication when phone batteries dwindle.
