SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Army National Guard’s 641st Aviation Regiment, in collaboration with several agency partners, responded to multiple Search and Rescue operations during their scheduled July weekend’s Inactive Duty Training (IDT) at various locations across Oregon.
Working with Clackamas County, the Oregon National Guard was activated on July 13, 2025, using a UH-72A Lakota helicopter to assist in searching for a missing gravel biker who had been unaccounted for since Friday, July 11. Given the large search area, the Lakota was primarily used to scan the Trillium Lake region, where the individual has yet to be located by air and ground teams working together.
Gravel biking, similar to mountain biking, features on-road tires and is versatile enough to traverse a variety of terrains. With this type of bike, the search area can be immense.
After receiving a call in the early hours of July 13 from Klamath County Search and Rescue, Scott Lucas, State SAR Coordinator, with the Oregon Department of Emergency Management, reported that a hiker had fallen off a cliff in the Crater Lake area. The Oregon Guard deployed an HH-60M Black Hawk from the Army Aviation Support Facility in Salem to Crater Lake in the morning to assist with the rescue.
“Klamath County (Search and Rescue) said they had information that he had fallen off a cliff into a heavily wooded area, and they could hear him yelling,” Lucas said. “In both cases, the mountain biker and the individual at Crater Lake left their cell phones in their cars, so we couldn’t figure out where they were by locating their signal on the mobile devices.”
When ground crews from Klamath County were searching for the fallen hiker, his call for help was echoing from the Caldera in the cone of the volcano, making it hard to locate him. After a lengthy period of aerial observation, the Black Hawk had gone to Medford for refueling, while the ground crews had put a boat in the water to search along the shoreline, examining the cliffs.
“All of a sudden, (the ground crew) they heard a rock slide, and the guy pops out of the tree line, all bloody and limping,” Lucas said, describing a follow-up phone call from Klamath County officials. “He basically…was self-rescued.”
As the Black Hawk was on the ground refueling, Lucas said another call came in from Klamath County SAR about three injured hikers near Lake Harriett, Southeast of Crater Lake.
“A tree limb had fallen on them as they were hiking, and there was a doctor there who happened to be hiking nearby, saying one case had a severe head injury,” Lucas said. “So we sent the Black Hawk up to Lake Harriett, where they landed, and a medic checked out all three hikers.”
The Black Hawk transported the one serious patient to Medford Airport, where they were taken by ground transportation by ambulance to a local hospital. By 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 13, all the aircraft had returned to Salem. In total, three missions, two by the Black Hawk and one by the Lakota, were all done in one day.
“These incidents went on and on…it was quite a day,” Lucas said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a day like this with so many incidents to assist that we responded to, except for a couple of years ago, where we rescued two people stranded in separate locations.”
The incident occurred on October 26, 2023, when an Oregon Army National Guard HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter rescued a mountain biker stuck in a 5-foot snowdrift along a trail near Hawk Mountain, as he had sheltered in place overnight. They later rescued a female hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail who was caught in whiteout conditions for two days. She activated her In-Reach GPS device on Oct. 24, but ground crews could not reach her also due to the heavy snowdrifts and downed trees.
Recent missions have kept members of the Oregon Army National Guard's aviation units fully engaged in supporting critical search and rescue operations. This high-stakes work showcases their unwavering discipline and commitment to excellence, whether during drill weekends with added personnel or when working with a leaner team. They consistently rise to the challenge, delivering essential care and life-saving results.
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