Students will arrive to campus in droves for the beginning of the fall semester next week, but UNM campus had a more unusual visitor on Sunday evening.
Pedestrians gathered around the perimeter of Johnson Field as a Black Hawk rescue helicopter deliver an injured man from the Sandia Mountains at approximately 7:30 p.m.
APD officials said the man was injured in a climbing accident and transferred to the top of the mountain where the helicopter -- belonging to the Air National Guard -- rescued him.
Once the helicopter landed on Johnson Field, the man was transferred to a stretcher and moved to the back of an Albuquerque Fire Rescue ambulance.
An Albuquerque Mountain Rescue team member exited the helicopter with the injured man, staying at his side and assisting ground rescuers throughout. The team member boarded the helicopter at the top of the mountain to accompany the injured man during the air transfer, also boarding the paramedic’s vehicle to accompany the man to UNMH.
Curtis Gillespie, a freshman nuclear engineering major, was playing football at Johnson field when police vehicles pulled up to block off half of the field instructing him and his teammates to back away from the area.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Gillespie said. After a short while he said his coach told him a rescue helicopter was landing.
Rico Dukes, an automotive technology and engineering student, said he regularly jogs around Johnson Field and Sunday's events were the first he'd seen of that caliber.
“Nothing has happened like this before,” he said.
Dukes said when four police vehicles drove their cars onto the field everybody moved back, and that the helicopter landed shortly after that.
“It came really fast,” he said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Sean Frazier, battalion commander for the APD Fire Department, said the state's Air National Guard is responsible for mountain rescues. He said Johnson Field is a good place for rescue helicopters to land when transferring rescues from the Sandias because of its wide open space and a short proximity from UNM.
Dispatchers waited for the rescue helicopter at Johnson Field for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, according to Frazier.
“It didn’t take them long to get here,” he said.
Frazier could not comment on the identity or the condition of the injured man.
