Alaska

Coppell nurse on vacation in Alaska rescues family from river after plane crash

Published

3 years ago

June 1, 2022

Coppell nurse on vacation in Alaska rescues family from river after plane crash

Coppell nurse on trip in Alaska rescues household from river after airplane crash

A North Texas nurse was off the grid in Alaska when a airplane crashed almost in entrance of her group. She and others went to work within the chilly to rescue a pair and their child whereas ready for assist that was greater than an hour away. “All of it similar to fell collectively into this loopy miraculous second the place all the things lined up completely.”

A North Texas nurse was off the grid in Alaska when a airplane crashed almost in entrance of her group.

She and others went to work within the chilly whereas ready for assist that was greater than an hour away.

The nurse from Coppell mentioned if it wasn’t for a zipline tour being rescheduled, she and others would not have been there to avoid wasting a household after a airplane crash.

Nurse Tammy Saunders and administrator Jon Brooks from Grapevine Religion Christian College discovered themselves in the course of a nerve-racking rescue. Each are chaperones on a two-week management journey with excessive schoolers in Alaska.

“Each nurse I do know and labored with would’ve carried out the identical factor with out hesitation,” Saunders mentioned.

“So we’ve college students that had been making an attempt to arrange for all times and it doesn’t get extra actual when life is on the brink there,” Brooks mentioned.

Saturday afternoon, the group went ziplining when a airplane started circling low. Shortly after it disappeared behind the timber, they heard the crash.

Brett Winterbottom was working the zip traces that day.

“I used to be like, ‘Does anybody have medical coaching?’” he recalled. “And this poor nurse raises her hand. She’s like, ‘I’m a nurse.’ And I used to be like, ‘Include me!’”

In shock, Winterbottom and Saunders noticed a mom, a father and their 7-month-old child floating down the Matanuska River on an airplane tire. The airplane was in items.

Winterbottom tied a rope round his waist and commenced wading into the 35 diploma water. The kid’s father, Logan, was in the course of the swift present.

“Logan was holding the infant above the water. Enzo is the infant’s identify,” Saunders recalled. “However the airplane stored breaking up, and he was so weak. He went into the water with the infant.

Winterbottom grabbed child Enzo and handed him off to Saunders after which went again to drag the daddy onto the financial institution.

“On the time, I didn’t know if Enzo was respiration. He was blue. He was chilly and unconscious,” Saunders mentioned.

Enzo’s mom was capable of swim to the alternative shoreline on her personal.

Saunders shortly wrapped child Enzo up in blankets whereas stabilizing his neck. He appeared to have a critical head damage.

Lastly, Enzo started to cry and open his eyes.

Greater than an hour later, first responders arrived and transported the household to the hospital.

“All of it similar to fell collectively into this loopy miraculous second the place all the things lined up completely,” Winterbottom mentioned. “I’d say when you did the chances, these folks weren’t presupposed to survive.”

Grapevine Religion Christian despatched child Enzo a message of encouragement. The group persevering with their journey that couldn’t have had higher timing.

“You may have a month and never be capable to stage this as excellent because it was staged. And it occurred like that,” Brooks mentioned.

The mom and father had been launched from the hospital Sunday, however they’re nonetheless there.

Child Enzo is out of the ICU however nonetheless recovering.

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Alaska

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

Published

2 minutes ago

December 25, 2024

Press Room

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Rabbi Josef Greenberg and Esty Greenberg of Alaska Jewish Campus, joined Alaska’s News Source to explain more about Hanukkah and how Anchorage can celebrate.

They will be hosting Chanukah, The Festival of Lights for “Cirque De Hanukkah,” on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 5 p.m., at the Egan Center.

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Alaska

A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

Published

8 hours ago

December 25, 2024

Press Room

A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A variety of winter weather will move through Alaska as we go through Christmas Day and the first night of Hannukah.

A high wind warning started Christmas Eve for Ketchikan, Sitka, and surrounding locations for southeast winds 30-40, gusting to 60 miles per hour. Warnings for the combination of strong winds and snow go to the west coast, western Brooks Range, and Bering Strait.

Anchorage is seeing a low-snow Christmas. December usually sees 18 inches of snow throughout the month. December 2024 has only garnered a paltry 1.5 inches. Snow depth in the city is 7 inches, even though we have seen over 28 inches for the season. A rain-snow mix is likely to hit Prince William Sound, mostly in the form of rain.

A cool-down will start in the interior tomorrow, and that colder air will slip southward. By Friday, the southcentral region will see the chances of snow increase as the temperatures decrease.

The hot spot for Alaska on Christmas Eve was Sitka with 48 degrees. The coldest spot was Atqasuk with 23 degrees below zero.

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Alaska

Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

Published

18 hours ago

December 24, 2024

Press Room

Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

YAKUTAT, Alaska — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.

Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.

The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.

Santa and Mrs. Claus talk to a child in Yakutat as part of the Alaska National Guard’s Operation Santa program Wednesday. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.

Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.

The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.

In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.

Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.

Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.

“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.

Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.

Alaska National Guard soldiers and airmen shovel the roof of a building in Yakutat. (Dana Rosso/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.

This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.

“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”

After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later, it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.

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