A National Guard medic and a pilot have been honored for their actions on a daring medevac mission in Afghanistan, where they quickly extracted wounded warriors and a dog while nearby friendly forces engaged enemy in a firefight.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bryan Herget and Staff Sgt. Derrick Perkins received the Dustoff Association's Rescue of the Year award on Friday, May 5, at a ceremony at the Army Aviation Support Facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, according to a release from the Wyoming National Guard.
Both of them had been deployed for less than a month when they flew the mission.
On Dec. 4, 2015, Herget and Perkins loaded a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from Charlie Company, 5-159th Aviation Regiment, for their first medevac mission of the tour. The two were part of a four-man crew that would meet up with a second Black Hawk helicopter responding, according to the release.
Lifting off within minutes of hearing the medevac request, they learned eight casualties were on the ground, along with a wounded dog from the handler team, and three patients needed urgent care.
As the crew approached the landing zone, they got the news that near the landing zone enemies and friendly troops were engaged in a firefight.
The wounded had been hurt in an IED blast.
The crew decided it was too risky to do the typical fly-over at the site before landing. They decided to take a "quick and direct approach" to try to avoid the enemy, Herget said in the release.
After landing, Perkins directed those who could walk to his Black Hawk, and sent the more seriously wounded to the lead aircraft, "We took on five, a dog, and an escort from the ground forces," Perkins said in the release.
Six minutes after landing, they lifted off, and "the lead aircraft pulled all the power it had," Herget said.
They headed towards Kandahar Airfield and the military combat hospital going "directly over bad spots," Perkins said.
At the airfield, they helped unload and transfer the wounded. Medical personnel said later that the crew's quick actions saved lives that day, according to the release.
After the mission, Herget and Perkins got to work resupplying their helicopter, without thinking what they had just done.
"It was the last thing you think of when you're doing your job," Perkins said.
Rachael Kalinyak is an editorial intern with Network Solutions.
