Fort Wainwright UH-60 Medevacs Man with Head/Neck Injuries from Medfra Airstrip

A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter coming in for a landing.(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Reese Von Rogatsz)
A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter coming in for a landing.(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Reese Von Rogatsz)

A Personal Locator Beacon was activated and picked up by the Alaska Rescue Coordination Cewnter on Thursday at 4:06 pm. The beacon was activated at the Medfra runway approximately 31 miles northwest of Nikolai.

Shortly after, troopers received another call reporting that a tree had fallen on 55-year-old Roger Seavoy, and Seavoy suffered head and neck injuries near Medfra. An Alaska Wildlife trooper and a physician’s assistant traveled to the scene in a Department of Public Safety aircraft and troopers requested a medevac via RCC helicopter.

A UH-60 Black Hawk lifted off from Fort Wainwright’s Ladd Army Airfield just before 6 pm with a medical evacuation team from C Company, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment and departed on the medevac mission.

Because of the distance and remoteness of the medevac, the UH-60 had to re-fuel at McGrath on the way to the injury location in order to assure that the aircraft had enough fuel to travel to Fairbanks. It arrived on-scene at 8:45 pm, and with the assistance of the Wildlife trooper, Seavoy was loaded onto the helicopter and departed at 915 pm. After traveling in the dark, utilizing night vision goggles, the Black Hawk arrived in Fairbanks at 11:10 pm at the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital with Seavoy in stable condition.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]