Archive image: Idaho Army National Guard (IDARNG) HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter aircrews trained with the Boise Fire Department’s technical rescue team March 27 and 28, 2025, near Gowen Field.
The training helped qualify Boise Firefighters for conducting hoist operations in conjunction with Idaho Army National Guard aircrews when called upon by state or local agencies to assist with search and rescue efforts.
Idaho Army National Guard photo by Mike Freeman.
An Idaho Army National Guard (IDARNG) HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter aircrew conducted the rescue of a hiker on a ridgeline near Fiddle Lake, Trinity Mountain, east of Boise. Wednesday, August 20, 2025.
The Idaho Army National Guard HH-60M Black Hawk, belongs Detachment 1, Golf Company, 1st Battalion, 168th Aviation Regiment executed the IDARNG Aviation Group’s eighth successful search and rescue mission of 2025 on Wednesday.
The unit responded with an HH-60M Black Hawk aircrew to a request from Air St. Luke’s for a helicopter with hoist capability. The Air St. Luke’s aircrew had located the patient, a 55-year-old male with a broken leg.
An initial assessment indicated that no suitable landing zone (LZ) was available near the patient. However, by the time the HH-60M Black Hawk aircrew arrived on scene, the Air St. Luke’s team had located a suitable LZ, landed and hiked to the patient to assess him and provide first aid. Sgt. First Class Jade Parsons, the crew’s senior flight medic, was hoisted down and made contact with the Air St. Luke’s team at the patient’s location.
After conferring, the joint team determined that with the landing zone and additional manpower, the patient could now be carried by litter from the point of injury to the Air St. Luke’s helicopter.
Working together, the Air St Luke’s and Army National Guard aircrew members carried the patient by litter to the landing zone and loaded him into the Air St. Luke’s helicopter. However, due to power limitations of their helicopter, the Air St. Luke’s crew was unable to safely evacuate the patient’s dog and gear along with him.
Parsons and Staff Sgt. Jake Brown —the second Army medic on the mission— improvised a muzzle and makeshift hearing protection for the dog before loading him and the patient’s gear into the HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter. The Soldiers then safely delivered the dog and gear to a Fairfield emergency medical services (EMS) ambulance that was on standby about a mile away.
«In the National Guard, we’re also trained in canine medicine, so we know how to sedate, protect and transport them,» said Parsons. In this case, the dog was friendly and did not require sedation to board the Black Hawk and fly to safety.
«He was really good,» said Parsons. «When we got him to the ambulance and he got the muzzle off, he turned around and smiled at us.»
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