Even with a helicopter, rescuing hiker in Big Cypress Preserve wasn't easy

A five-man Collier County Sheriff’s Office aviation rescue crew fueled up, geared up and shipped out in a Vietnam War-era Huey this week to rescue a man lost in Big Cypress National Preserve.

Some things went right. Dispatchers got the hiker’s exact location, using his cellphone data, which meant the rescue crew knew where to find the man. The pilots could see the hiker and had dispatch direct him to find a clearing so the helicopter could land. The hiker, Aaron Rys, 33, of Cape Coral, wasn’t hurt.

Some things went wrong. The crew lost communications in the helicopter. It was dark and foggy, limiting the pilots’ visibility. The helicopter was using up fuel. Deputies in the agriculture unit searching for the hiker on the ground were met by water moccasins and dense brush.

More:CCSO helicopter rescues hiker lost in Big Cypress National Preserve

The worst of what went wrong, the crew said, was having to leave the hiker in Big Cypress overnight Monday.

“It was not a good feeling for any of us having to leave someone behind,” said Cpl. Dennis DeRienzo, who piloted the Huey the night of the rescue. “It was the worst feeling.”

The crew had to weigh the situation against their limitations, they said.

If deputies on the ground continued, they could have been bitten by venomous snakes and needed a rescue themselves. The helicopter pilots could have returned to the Sheriff’s Office’s special operations center to refuel and then fly back to Big Cypress, but the foggy conditions made that impossible. The crew could see the hiker, but the heavy canopy could have caused the hoist to get caught or tangled.

Dispatchers told the hiker the rescue would have to wait until morning.

They directed the man to turn his cellphone off to conserve the battery and call back when he started seeing daylight.

The hiker called the Sheriff’s Office dispatch center again Tuesday at 6:41 a.m.

“I’m hearing these really low growls around me, and they have me kind of concerned,” the man told a 911 operator.

The growls seemed to be coming from more than one direction, the man said in the 911 call. The hiker tried giving the dispatcher an idea of where he was and said he was wearing a “medium green” shirt and jeans.

The operator directed the hiker to move toward an area with less of a canopy when it was lighter outside.

When the fog lifted around 8 a.m. Tuesday, the crew fueled up, geared up and shipped out again after their briefing.

DeRienzo manned the helicopter. Cpl. Edward Henderson co-piloted.

Cpl. Aaron App operated the hoist that lowered Cpl. Josh White into the dense canopy and lifted White and the rescued man into the air.

Cpl. Ruben Gonzalez lifted the man into the helicopter.

“It’s a huge team effort,” DeRienzo said.

White, the rescue specialist who was lowered from the helicopter, said the area from which the hiker was rescued off Loop Road was thick with trees and that it was difficult to hook the hiker to the hoist.

“I underestimated how dense it was,” he said. “I could barely move.”

White said the hiker was quiet and seemed a little shocked during the rescue, but he followed the instructions White gave before they were both hoisted up.

The hiker did not return a phone call or text message requesting an interview.

The crew said it was a huge relief once they finally had the man secured in the helicopter.

“Everyone is high-fiving everyone in the cockpit,” Henderson, the co-pilot, said.

This rescue came with some firsts for the Sheriff’s Office. It was the first time the Huey was used in a hoist rescue. It was also the first-ever aviation rescue for three members of the five-man rescue crew — App, Gonzalez and White.

When hikers were reported missing in the past, a pilot would search for them using thermal imaging cameras and spotlights, according to the Sheriff’s Office. The pilot would then radio the location of the lost hiker to deputies searching on the ground. If a hoist rescue was necessary, deputies waited for a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue helicopter.

Henderson, the co-pilot, said what he loves about the Huey is it’s a multi-mission helicopter. It can do fire work, tactical work and search-and-rescue work, he said.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the chopper was built in 1968 and was used in Vietnam in 1971. The helicopter was shot at and damaged a month after it was deployed, and it was returned to the U.S. for repairs. The helicopter was later used by the FBI, the U.S. Border Patrol, then by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations.

The Sheriff’s Office bought the helicopter in 2017 for $400,000 and spent an additional $350,000 on retrofitting the Huey and training deputies.

The aviation bureau consists of four pilots, six systems operators who can double as rescue specialists, and 10 rescue specialists. Seven of the rescue specialists work for the North Collier Fire Control and Rescue District. The pilots are the only full-time members of the aviation bureau. The rest of the team members work in different Sheriff's Office bureaus and are called in to the aviation team part-time.

The aviation team has undergone more than 400 hoist trainings and 500 training hours.

Good thing they’re not particularly nervous about heights.

App, the systems operator in charge of the hoist the night of the rescue, said they felt confident in their skills when it came time to use the training.

“We always plan for something to fail,” he said. “On this mission, I had comms failure.”

The crew switched to communicating by hand signals.

“You trust your gear, and you trust your guys,” said Gonzalez, one of the rescue specialists on the helicopter the night of the rescue. “I do my job, and they do theirs.”