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Bethel Black Hawk crew and paramedic rescue overdue rafter near Goodnews Lake

Bethel-based National Guard aviators and a paramedic rescued an overdue rafter on Aug. 12 near Goodnews Lake, according to the Alaska National Guard Public Affairs office.

According to a release from the National Guard, Alaska State Troopers requested the assistance of the crew to locate a rafter who went missing on the Goodnews River, around 100 miles southeast of Bethel.

A Black Hawk helicopter crew, along with a Bethel Fire Department paramedic, flew to the area. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Bryan Kruse was the pilot in command on the mission. He said that they got in the air with knowledge of the rafter’s last known location and some other details.

“We just had a map where we were going to start, a point where we're going to go to with high recons and low recons, looking in shorelines,” Kruse said. “Getting out there, it's – once you get onsite, you're just looking for signs of anything.”

Kruse said that after about 20 minutes onsite, they spotted a yellow dry bag marked with the missing individual’s name.

“So that gave us a really good solid point, like, this is the furthest upriver this can be, because it's where this bag is at this point,” Kruse said.

A few miles away, they found an overturned raft and a makeshift camp. Kruse said that they then located the individual near where they’d spotted the overturned raft. Kruse said that they were able to recover the rafter, and the Bethel Fire Department paramedic treated the man for mild hypothermia.

Kruse said that the Bethel National Guard facility doesn’t have a medic on staff, so it was helpful to have the fire paramedic along to assist.

“We knew if we did happen to find [the rafter] alive, he was very likely gonna be hypothermic. So we've built these relationships with the city, and just to have a set of somebody medically trained that can at least give some sort of care if we did find him, which was good to have him,” Kruse said.

The Army National Guard said that the rafter was released to the fire department for further treatment.

Corrected: August 14, 2024 at 10:11 AM AKDT
This story has been updated to correct CW3 Kruse's title.
Sage Smiley is KYUK's news director.