By Tricia Pursell
TROXELVILLE -- In addition to requesting additional manpower upon the discovery of David Frank Bone, 64, of Mechanicsburg, Snyder County 911 Coordinator Chad Aucker asked PEMA for a "quicker means for extrication, including a rescue helicopter," he said.
Snyder County 911 first notified PEMA of the search-and-rescue effort at 8:50 p.m. Oct. 13, according to a phone log provided by PEMA in response to a Right-to-Know Law request.
At 5:40 a.m. Oct. 14, a Snyder County 911 dispatcher asked a PEMA official for any additional resources that would help with the search-and-rescue in the dense woodlands of the Snyder-Middleswarth Nature Area. The dispatcher was told PEMA does not have any listing of search-and-rescue resources, but provided a phone number to the Pennsylvania Search-and-Rescue Council.
At 12:16 p.m. the same day, a Snyder County Emergency Management official told PEMA that Bone had been found, but they still had not found any means of getting him to a landing zone for a medical helicopter, two miles away.
It would take three to four hours for rescue personnel to carry Bone there, Aucker said -- through two miles of rough terrain including a 45-degree slope, and a trail no wider than 12 inches that required rescue personnel to cut brush with chain saws.
At 12:25 p.m., Aucker again contacted PEMA and asked if any other resources for rescue were available.
According to the time log from PEMA, when Snyder County asked, state emergency management officials replied that there was no quicker way to get Bone off the mountain than by carrying him.
Bone was pronounced dead at 3:50 p.m., approximately 3 1/2 hours after being found a mile and a half off the nearest trail.
Medical personnel from LifeFlight, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, attempted to reach Bone as quickly as possible, but by the time they met up with the rescue personnel carrying him out of the woods, he had already died, according to Chris Palmer, a Geisinger spokesman.
If it had been requested by PEMA, a rescue helicopter from the National Guard would have taken one hour to prepare for deployment, and another hour to travel to the site from the closest base, at Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville.
"We didn't receive a mission," said Cory Angell, a National Guard public affairs officer with the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at Fort Indiantown Gap. "I can't speculate on what our ability would have been to respond to it."
They receive their missions directly from PEMA, he said.
The failure to request the assistance of the National Guard was questioned by a pilot from the state Bureau of Forestry, according to reports released by PEMA.
"I would like to know if PEMA has the ability to seek support from the Army National Guard at (Fort Indiantown Gap)," Matthew Gross, an aircraft operations and safety specialist with the Bureau of Forestry, wrote in an Oct. 15 e-mail to PEMA. "Those assets are flying daily on local training sorties, but I know could be released in the event of a real-life (search-and-rescue) mission. Who better than these combat-ready/trained folks to do this sort of a mission?"
He added: "Sorry to hit with all this, it just blows my mind that Pennsylvania doesn't have a better working relationship between all the folks with assets that could have supported this citizen of the Commonwealth in a time of need."
According to Maria Finn, PEMA spokeswoman, Scott Forster, the PEMA official named in reports on the incident, said "It was a judgment call that a helicopter wouldn't get him (Bone) out any faster than by foot."
The National Guard does offer the use of a Chinook helicopter with a hoist mechanism during rescue operations, Angell said. It is often used during flooding scenarios, Angell said.
However, he said, this type of helicopter has a twin blade, which "generates a tremendous amount of force and winds, and can cause debris to fly," Angell said. The downdraft has been known to blow trees over.
"A number of factors have to be considered," he said. "Every mission is different, and it's going to have its own unique challenges."
A helicopter from the Pennsylvania State Police circled the area approximately one hour on the night of Oct. 13, and then left because its infra-red technology couldn't get through the heavy canopy of trees, according to Derick Shambach, Snyder County EMA Coordinator. He and Aucker arrived on the scene at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
The helicopter attempted to come out twice the following day, but was not equipped to perform rescue operations.
"Did we do everything we could have?" Shambach said. "Yeah, I think we have. Would a helicopter (from the National Guard) have made a difference? I don't know."
Shambach said through a conversation with Bone's daughter, he was told that Bone's family was "ecstatic with the effort we put out to find her father."
In a letter dated Nov. 12, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry also lauded Aucker and Shambach and other Snyder County emergency management employees for their dedication and commitment to the attempted rescue mission.
