A coordinated effort by various Alaskan agencies facilitated the rescue of two Kenai Peninsula skiers from the Harding Icefields Tuesday afternoon.
Senior mission controller Captain John Romspert with the Alaska Air National Guard recounted some of the challenges the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center faced on this particular incident.
Capt. Romspert: “One is just the scope of the rescue, the fact that it’s on a glacier, at altitude, in bad weather, that always brings a different risk factor to it. The second is that there’s different entities all working together to try to locate the survivors, which also brings about different challenges.”
Reports that Jennifer Neyman and Chris Hanna were stranded on Bear Glacier initially came to the Alaska State Troopers on Saturday from friends whom the pair were messaging via a satellite phone. On Tuesday the inclement weather that had been impairing rescue efforts quieted enough to allow crews to retrieve the two.
Soldotna resident Joe Dilley says he had just fallen asleep for the first time after worrying non-stop since Sunday when he received the call that Chris, his best friend, had arrived at Central Peninsula Hospital.
Dilley: “I walked up there, he turned around and looked at me, I gave him a big hug and, I’m not going to say I cried because that’s un-manly, but we chatted just for a second, I told him I was glad he’s here and he said that he needed to get back to see Jenny.”
Both Hanna and Neyman were reported as “in good condition” when they arrived at the hospital and Hanna refused medical treatment. Dilley says he only knows that Neyman was getting intravenous fluids.
He says even though both of them are experienced outdoors people, he was very concerned since the weather continued impeding rescue efforts.
Dilley says he very much appreciates the rescuers who braved the weather to retrieve his friends.
Dilley: “These local rescue groups, holy cow, those guys are freaking studs in my book. From the pilot down to the guy that runs the winch line, they got, I don’t know if this can go on the radio or not but they’ve got balls of brass.”
