Osan copter crew evacuates ailing
South Korean woman from island
By Jim Lea, Stars and Stripes
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — A crew from Osan’s 33rd Rescue Squadron’s
Detachment 1 battled inclement weather in a four-hour mercy mission Tuesday.
The crew evacuated a 30-year-old South Korean woman suffering pregnancy difficulties
from a tiny island near North Korea to a hospital at Suwon for treatment.
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Phillips, an Osan spokesman, said the mission began after
the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff notified base officials that the woman was in need
of immediate evacuation from Paengnyong Island, about 120 miles north of Osan in the
Yellow Sea.
Phillips said one of the squadron’s HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters left Osan for the
island at 4:55 p.m. Inclement weather prevented it from landing, however, and it returned
to Osan at 6 p.m. to refuel and change crews.
The chopper took off again about 30 minutes later and was able to land on the island at
7:15 p.m. It took off 25 minutes later, headed for a hospital in Seoul. Inclement weather
in the capital again prevented a landing and the crew turned toward Osan, landing there at
8:51 p.m.
The woman, her husband and doctor were transferred to a South Korean ambulance waiting
on the flight line and were sped to Aju Hospital in Suwon.
The woman gave birth to a 4-pound, 12-ounce boy an hour after arriving at the hospital.
Air Force Maj. Eric Steward, the detachment commander, piloted the helicopter. The Air
Force crew included Capt. Matt Menthe, the co-pilot; Staff Sgt. Lance Miller, flight
engineer; Staff Sgt. Richard Joy, left scanner; and pararescuemen Staff Sgt. Joshua Smith
and Senior Airman Jonathan McCoy.
Phillips quoted Steward as saying that although the flight wasn’t a combat
mission, "the efforts by everyone involved — the Korean Combined Rescue
Coordination Center, 7th Air Force and the maintenance and flight crews of Detachment 1
— made great strides in continuing relations between the U.S. and ROK."
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