Medic wins medal for mountain rescue
FAIRBANKS - An Army medic awarded a medal for courage is quick to credit the pilots who flew him to a dangerous rescue.
Staff Sgt. Ken Greenleaf was awarded the Soldier's Medal for braving severe weather and terrain on Dec. 7, 2002 to rescue an injured snowmobiler on a mountain ridge near the Gulkana Glacier.
Greenleaf told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner it's the pilots who flew the aircraft through whiteout conditions and landed safely on the mountain that day that deserve the award.
"What Capt. (Dawn) Groh and CW2 (Chief Warrant Officer James) Neal did that day was phenomenal," Greenleaf said.
Greenleaf is part of Fort Wainwright's 68th Medical Company Air Ambulance. The Soldier's Medal, awarded by Congress and announced July 2, is the highest peacetime award given to a member of the armed forces.
"We reserve the Soldier's Medal for real heroes," said Maj. Gen. John Brown, Army Alaska commander, as he pinned the medal on Greenleaf before 3,000 soldiers this month.
"When one of our brothers or sisters demonstrates the kind of courage in the face of severe danger, risking life and limb, their own lives, it's very fitting we honor them."
It was a mission that could have turned deadly not only for the snowmobiler, but also for the crew of four in the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.
"In Alaska, getting there is half the battle - it's three-quarters the battle," Greenleaf said. "That was not your average mission."
Pilots had to deal with snow, low fuel and temperatures of 30 degrees below zero while trying to find a landing zone on a mountainside near the injured man.
His friends formed a triangle with their sleds to outline a place to land. When Greenleaf and the crew chief Staff Sgt. Brad Posey jumped out of the aircraft to talk to the snowmobilers, they landed in snow up to their waists.
After they were told the injured man was on a ridge further up the mountain, Greenleaf and Posey jumped on the back of two snowmobiles. Before long both flipped.
Greenleaf got on another and again tried to make his way up the slope. He went about 100 feet before it flipped, leaving Greenleaf to hike. After a two-hour struggle through the snow, Greenleaf reached the injured man.
The man was hypothermic and suffering from a back injury. His snowmobile was in pieces scattered down the side of the mountain. Greenleaf estimated the man had been there for five to six hours.
Greenleaf managed to lower the man down to the chopper. He said the journey made the mission the most physically demanding he has faced in his six years with the 68th.
He has also had some bizarre cases.
In his estimated 40 missions in Alaska, Greenleaf has dangled below the helicopter at the end of the hoist, retrieved stranded hunters and hikers, and witnessed the birth of a premature baby, on whom he had to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation that saved her life.
"We're glad he's leaving," joked Sgt. Michael Tredway, another medic at the 68th. "He gets all the cool missions."