GREYBULL, Wyo. – High above the snow-covered slopes of the Greybull Mountains, a Wyoming Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk hovers as personnel from the Big Horn Search and Rescue team are lowered onto the rugged terrain below.

The hoist training, conducted Jan. 28 by the Wyoming National Guard, equips civilian search and rescue teams with the skills needed to work safely and efficiently with military aviation crews in Wyoming’s most inaccessible environments. For responders, it is not hypothetical training – it is based on missions they have already faced.

In the Sheridan mountains, on Sept. 1, 2025, a small aircraft crashed deep in mountainous terrain. Multiple patients were injured, miles from the nearest road, in a drainage where landing a helicopter was impossible. Ground teams hiked more than 7 miles to reach the site, only to find patients deteriorating rapidly.

Andy Earp, a member of the Sheridan area search and rescue team and a Wyoming hoist team member, recounted the incident.

“One hundred percent, this training saved lives,” he said. “Without it, I don’t believe that rescue would have gone as smoothly as it did, and I truly don’t think our most critical patient would have survived.”

“They went from yellow to red while we were on scene,” Earp said. “We weren’t going to be able to walk them out. There were no roads, no easy options.”

As search and rescue teams requested aviation support, relief came when they learned the Wyoming National Guard helicopter crew was on standby in Pinedale, Wyoming. When the aircraft arrived on scene, the familiarity between the crews was apparent immediately.

“The medic, Staff Sgt. Ashley Ott, came down, looked at the wreckage, and then looked at us and said, ‘I know you guys,’” Earp said. “That’s when we knew this was going to go smoother.”

Unbeknownst to them at the time, the crew was the same Army Guard personnel who had trained the rescue teams years earlier. The pilot in command, hoist operator and flight medic had all served as instructors during previous hoist courses.

“It all fell into place,” Earp said. “We didn’t have to question what anyone was doing. Everyone knew what to expect.”

That shared understanding – how to manage rotor wash, stabilize patients and communicate with hand signals and verbal cues – is exactly what the hoist training is designed to build.

“This kind of training allows us to pick patients up where they are, instead of moving them to a landing zone,” said Jeff Schmidt, search and rescue captain for Big Horn County Search and Rescue. “In the Bighorns, most of our missions are miles from a trailhead, often above treeline. Hoist capability saves hundreds of man-hours and, more importantly, time for the patient.”

Schmidt said his team has conducted about 14 to 15 patient hoists in the past five years.

Wyoming’s geography makes this type of partnership essential, Schmidt said. With vast distances, extreme elevation changes and unpredictable weather, aviation is often the only viable rescue option.

“Wyoming presents a unique challenge,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 John Paul Matthews, a Wyoming Army National Guard standardization instructor. “High altitude, freezing temperatures, strong winds – this training keeps us sharp and helps us understand our limits before we’re called out on someone’s worst day.”

From the cockpit, pilots train not only in flying skills but also in crew coordination and power management in mountainous environments. In the cabin, hoist operators and medics refine the precision required to lower personnel into confined spaces that are sometimes no larger than a break in the trees or, as in Sheridan, the wreckage of an aircraft itself.

“The ground teams already had patients stabilized when we arrived,” Matthews said. “That level of coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because we train together.”

Sgt. 1st Class Andrew McCown, a hoist operator, said the success of the Sheridan mission hinged on that shared training.

“Two of the rescuers on the ground had gone through our hoist familiarization,” McCown said. “They anticipated rotor wash, secured loose debris, helped manage slack and assisted the medic as she came down. That teamwork made the rescue faster and safer for everyone.”

In the end, the most critical patient was extracted within two hours of rescuers reaching the crash site – a timeline Earp believes made the difference.

“As residents of Wyoming, we’re self-sufficient people,” he said. “But when things go wrong in this terrain, you need partnerships like this. Training together is what turns chaos into coordination.”

As the Black Hawk lifts away from the Greybull Mountains and the hoist cable retracts, the training concludes. But for the rescuers and aviators involved, the purpose remains clear: ensuring that when the next call comes, everyone involved already knows how to save lives together.