{"id":62649,"date":"2020-08-13T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/coast-guard-rescues-injured-boy-hiking-near-haines\/"},"modified":"2020-08-13T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T10:00:00","slug":"coast-guard-rescues-injured-boy-hiking-near-haines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/coast-guard-rescues-injured-boy-hiking-near-haines\/","title":{"rendered":"Coast Guard rescues injured boy hiking near Haines"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Coast Guard aircrew stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka flying an MH-60 Jayhawk like the one pictured medevac’d a 12-year-old boy who suffered an injury while hiking near Haines on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
“We were already flying when we got the call. We were nearby Sitka so we stopped to refuel,” said Lt. Cmdr Will Sirokman, pilot of the aircraft. “The weather was pretty decent, so we were able to get up to that lake in less than an hour.”<\/p>\n
Emergency calls from other partners agencies are routed to Coast Guard District 17’s command center, Sirokman said, before a decision whether CGAS Sitka’s MH-60 Jayhawks can assist is made. Once that call was made, Sirokman and his flight crew landed, refueled, and flew for Paradise Lake.<\/p>\n
“We were able to contact them from the helicopter on their cell phone to confirm their position. It was approaching sunset when we got there,” Sirokman said. “We had a good position for them and they had lights. We found them right away.”<\/p>\n