BRISTOL, Va. -- On Sept. 27, Virginia State Police pilots Jeff Bush and Brian Canada transported 44 people to safety from the roof of the nearly submerged Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee.
During that operation, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee sent Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin a photo of one of the Virginia helicopters at the scene with a note that read, "Virginia to the rescue."
Afterward both state leaders praised the efforts of the pilots, their flight crews and the Tennessee National Guard which also participated in rescuing an additional 20 people, including patients in boats in the water, from the life-and-death situation.
Bush and Canada recently spoke with the Bristol Herald Courier to describe how that day unfolded and all the challenges they faced.
Bush, whose early morning Interstate 26 commute took him right past that very hospital, recalls heavy rain and winds in advance of Hurricane Helene during his two-hour drive.
Meanwhile, in Abingdon, Master Trooper/pilot Brian Canada wasn't scheduled to work that day but was on call and monitoring the weather because the storm's path was forecast to pass directly over the mountains of Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Neither imagined they would be called to aid in the daring daylight rescue.
"With hurricanes, the state will move assets. So, in anticipation of the storm coming through this area they pre-planned and moved a second helicopter here," Canada told the Bristol Herald Courier. "Prior to that we didn't have but one. They knew the track of the storm and moved a helicopter here a day or two in advance and we were ready for it."
Bush, who is semi-retired, was the lone pilot scheduled for the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., shift, working with veteran flight nurses April Boyd and Wayne Carroll.
He remembers an uneventful first couple of hours catching up on paperwork and no one expecting to fly due to the weather.
"Around 10 a.m., April saw a photo on social media of water inside the hospital and so we began monitoring the news more closely," Bush said. "About 11:30, they called to ask for assistance but the ceiling was low and I said check back in an hour.
"Then we started diving in. If we need to help these people, how can we do this? The water is coming up, they don't have a roof [helicopter] pad. Can they get the patients to the roof? How are we going to do this? All this time, I've got this image of a little bit of water coming into the lobby in my head," Bush said.
While weather improved, the situation at the hospital was deteriorating rapidly. The building filled with water, forcing more than 50 people to the the roof just before 12:30 p.m. The remaining seven patients, who were unable to climb up to the roof, were placed in rescue boats with emergency responders or hospital staff, in a corner away from the current, to try and ride out the storm.
Back at Abingdon, Canada came in and the two pilots quickly developed a game-plan. Another pilot, Jake Culp, arrived and would ride with Canada and assist with the mission.
The flight crew removed the stretcher from the smaller Bell 407 helicopter to maximize space for passengers, Boyd said.
"We wanted to do this in as few trips as possible," Boyd said.
Bush and the medical team would fly the larger Airbus EC145 but left the stretcher inside.
"I kept looking at the weather. At 12:30 it was starting to improve. They called back at about quarter of 1. That second call, we found out there were 54-plus people on the roof," Bush said. "We topped off on fuel and I was first one out."
They departed Abingdon at 1:51 p.m., and were forced to fly around some weather to get there.
"We couldn't go straight from here because the ceiling was low, so we went toward Johnson City and turned south. As we got closer, I was amazed to see how much water -- it was basically from mountain to mountain," Bush recalled.
"There is no way I could imagine the amount of water. You could basically see the top of the cab of the fire truck and the top of the box for the ambulance that they first brought in to help people get out. That water must have rose so fast. It was awe-striking how much water it took to cover that much land and it was three-quarters of the way up the building," he said.
Boyd used her phone to capture images and video as they flew in -- some of which wound up on national news.
"We got into the Unicoi area, it was shocking and unbelievable the amount of water; seeing homes floating through what would normally be an interstate. Outbuildings, trailers, the devastation we witnessed was unbelievable," Boyd said.
In the other helicopter, Canada had a similar reaction.
"I was surprised. I don't have a good word for it, but I did not anticipate seeing what I saw. I envisioned two or three feet of water and they were in a spot they couldn't evacuate from. When we turned the corner looking through that valley it looked like the whole valley was full of water. I'd never seen anything like it and I've looked at that valley a bunch over my career," Canada said, adding his immediate reaction was, 'Uh oh, this is on.'
"I knew where that hospital was. When we showed up and rolled into the valley, it was difficult for me to find the hospital - everything was different. My first sighting of the hospital, it was two-thirds submerged so you're literally just looking at the top," he said.
Complicating matters, the 50,000-square-foot building's roof contained HVAC units, pipes, vents and other obstructions that could damage the craft's rotors.
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People on the roof selected one potential touch-down site, but Bush saw another spot that appeared clearer.
"That hospital wasn't designed to handle the weight of a helicopter on its roof," Canada said. "We were able to sit the helicopter skids on that rooftop. We pre-planned so we were light on the skids. I didn't put the whole weight down. We were enough to be stable. That adds extra risk. I've got a lot of vortices off the rotor system - it's a lot of wind.
"We were able to find two locations on the rooftop - far enough apart - that we could expedite the pickups so we could actually both be picking up at the same time," Canada said.
Culp and Carroll climbed down onto the roof to assist people getting into the helicopters.
"There were people so upset. I don't know if they didn't want to get on a helicopter or just because of the situation," Boyd said. "People were crying, some were nauseated -- some patients who we took away from the facility.
"The first [trip] were walking patients. We got as many as we could then started moving medical patients off," she said.
When Bush first reached the high school, he didn't see the planned dropoff point at the football field - which is located beyond an adjacent elementary school -- so he landed in a field in front of the school. Emergency responders, who were at the football field, then rushed to the impromptu landing site.
"Brian was strictly a transport aircraft. For me, we left the stretcher in the helicopter and April remained in the helicopter in case we had people who needed some medical attention. We had three people we actually transported on the stretcher in the five or so iterations we did," Bush said.
Each trip took about two minutes over and two minutes back, as the pilots flew at about 100 mph.
"The first time I picked up three. After that, every time, I took four. That is a load in the back and as many as I could have gotten," Canada said. "We loaded them in, some folks we couldn't get a seat belt on them... We secured them as best we could, shut the doors, they gave me a thumbs up, I'd wait until they cleared and I'm up and away."
Cloudy, rainy conditions greeted their arrival and, although the weather cleared, the continuing winds made the job challenging.
"It was windy. Very windy. Gusty. Wind doesn't bother me but the gustiness - the helicopter responds to the gusts. That was the riskiest part of what we were doing, weatherwise, was managing the gusts," Canada said.
"Some of them had the ride of their life. There were times with the attitude of that helicopter, due to the wind, I bet I scared them," he said.
At 3:35 p.m., the two pilots had transported 23 people to safety.
As the mission wore on, concern about the hospital's stability grew as the water level nearly reached the rooftop.
At its peak, floodwaters were an estimated 12 feet deep near the two massive stone columns at the building's front entrance -- with ocean-like waves five to seven feet high.
"At some point during the rescue they said the building was swaying and were concerned it might collapse. They felt things were moving and it became more intense," Boyd said. "That was more concerning. The sense of urgency of we've got to move as many patients as we can, offload quick and get back quick Time was of the essence."
More help arrived in the form of three National Guard Blackhawk helicopters.
"Jeff and I were on our second rotation of picking up folks when the Guard showed up. We didn't communicate with them until they came down and we used the air-to-air frequency. Once they jumped on that frequency with us, we were able to communicate with them. Then it became more of a well-oiled machine," he said. "They were operating a different type of rescue. My mode was come in to one of the two spots that were open, They had to operate and pick up some folks who couldn't make it to the roof."
Fortuitous, since neither state police copter was equipped with a hoist that day.
"They got some people off the roof too," Bush said. "It was great they came because neither of our aircraft had any hoists -- they were in maintenance. So, at the time, we had no idea how we were going to get these people off these boats sheltering in the building from this rushing water."
By 4:40 p.m., everyone had been safely evacuated and patients were transferred via ambulance to other hospitals.
Canada called this an assignment unlike any other.
"We don't normally go land on a roof over water and there be more than one aircraft there. It got pretty complicated when those three Tennessee National Guard Blackhawk helicopters showed up but there was no pre-planning. We just operated as professional as we knew how. As risky as that situation was, we tried to make it as safe as we could," Canada said.
"Looking back on it, what a blessing it was we were able to operate and manage that situation safely with very little preparation," Canada said. "We are professional pilots. We do train to do this type of stuff. Then add the Guard in, who we do not train with, but they're helicopter pilots just like I am. To just jump into the mix, it worked out well. It really did."
Each VSP pilot hauled between three to five people per trip and, combined, Bush and Canada rescued about 44 or 45 people from the rooftop.
Canada, who has flown for 17 years, said this event stands out.
"This was at the top. I've done some risky stuff but this one was it. It was the mixture of everything. We had the weather, we had the obstacles, the aspect there were five helicopters involved in this rescue," Canada said.
"We were just in there doing our work; trying to accomplish that assignment. But I'm not going to lie, I didn't recognize I was managing adrenaline. When we were pulling away and coming back, there was some relief," Canada said.
Boyd said she didn't feel relieved until they landed back at Abingdon -- and even then she didn't feel well. They had two more flights that night -- one to Damascus and another to Mountain City.
"There was a lot of praying. When I felt we were going, I started praying for those people, for us to do the right things. I feel like God has His hand on us and watched over us and kept us safe," she said.
Both helicopters returned to Abingdon about 5 p.m. Canada filled out his paperwork and headed home while Bush departed about 7:30 p.m., hoping to return to his home in Asheville, N.C. However that journey took 17 hours, because floodwaters blocked or washed out most of the routes he attempted to travel.
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