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Johnny stood and joined me at the front of the room. “Your helmet will be fixed with a GoPro camera to record the rescue so we can go over it with you afterwards. We know you can handle the mechanical portion of the rescue method, but we don’t know if you can handle the challenges of medical treatment on the fly while tethered to a twenty-five-hundred-pound metal bird. We also want to test your ability to determine whether the situation actually requires an airborne rescue or whether the situation would be better handled another way, such as inserting a paramedic into the field, dropping supplies only, or aborting the mission altogether.”
I took a sip from my water bottle before taking over. “Can anyone tell me one of the standard questions you should be asking yourself about your airborne rescue mission?”
Several students shot their hands up, and I pointed at Morrie. “Go ahead.”
“Is this necessary?”
“Good,” I said with a nod. “What else?” I ignored Lucky who sat front and center as usual. “Marcus?”
“Have all hazards been identified and made known?” he asked.
“Yep. Luiz?”
The young man sat up straighter in his chair. “Is there a better way to do it?”
I called on a couple of other students who answered diligently. I had to admit they were a good group.
“Perfect,” Johnny said to another student before I could answer. “Lucky? What about you?”
Lucky shot me a look but remained professional the way he had for two straight weeks.
“Should we stop the operation because of weather, communication problems, or conflicting priorities?”
He met my eyes while he said the last part, and I ground my teeth together. “Fine. Alright, let’s go.”
Half the class moved out to the helicopter where, as usual, everyone took turns giving the equipment final checks alongside Tag while the other half stayed in the classroom to review and critique rescue videos I’d left for them. It was imperative not to have too many people on board when we needed to use larger equipment like the Stokes litter.
Thankfully, Lucky wasn’t in the first group, but my short-term relief about it turned around and bit me in the ass. The first group had some problems which pushed us later in the morning than I’d hoped. By the time the second group got up in the air, the wind had started to pick up just a bit and the skies were getting the barest hint of gray.
We got through the first pair’s drill easily enough, but then I realized that Lucky had drawn the scenario that required him to rappel from the helicopter to connect to a permanent anchor bolted to one of the faces of Cathedral Peak and pretend to be the victim of a sudden sixty-foot fall and exposure to extreme cold temperatures.
“We should wait,” I advised Tag from my position in the co-pilot’s seat. We’d left Morrie down in a lower meadow by the lake to prepare for his challenge as we flew Lucky up to his cliffside perch.
Tag glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You mean the weather? This isn’t bad yet. I think we have until about fourteen hundred before we’ll need to be concerned. Morrie and Lucky are the last pairing.”
Objectively, I knew he was right. I was being overly cautious, and after that first day’s confrontation, I’d promised Lucky that I wouldn’t treat him any differently than any other student. We’d agreed to treat each other as if we didn’t have a prior relationship of any kind. Just trainer and trainee, that was all.
But inside, my guts were churning and every hair on my body was standing straight up. I had to accept the fact I was worrying for no reason. There would never be a time I could watch Lucky rappel from a moving helicopter onto a sheer rock face and not be scared to death for him.
I had to trust him.
I had to trust the training I’d given him.
When it was time to help him onto the line and out the door of the helicopter, my hands were sweating and my heart felt like I’d run a 10k. I climbed back into the main cabin to triple check all of his harnesses as discreetly as I could. The two other students in the back had helped him prepare for his upcoming acting role, including smearing fake red blood in strategic places and brushing dirty smears of dark makeup to make it look like he’d truly been in a fall. They’d also drawn a fake crack onto his helmet and attached an empty water bottle to a carabiner on his belt. Finally, they clipped on a pair of ripped gloves that left his hands exposed where they’d whitened some of his fingers with more stage makeup. He’d switch out his rappelling gloves for those when he was securely in place.
