Utilities Use Trucks to Rescue Pilot, Man Stuck in Trees

Move over first responders — utility workers (and their trucks) are making headlines for saving lives.

In Alaska, several linemen from the Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) rescued a 58-year-old Wasilla pilot whose plane had gotten stuck in a tree 40 feet off the ground, according to the Alaska Dispatch.

Wind gusts had apparently blown him off course May 5 after he took off from a grass airstrip about 64 miles northeast of Anchorage. The linemen, Glenn Durkee and David Roby, were called to the scene of the plane crash and had to drag their basket-lift truck through about a foot of ice and mud to get to the pilot. They then had to climb into the lift basket to get into the “dangling plane,” hook the pilot into a safety harness, and then help him down into the lift basket. 

Edward Merren, the pilot rescued, gave them both a hug when they reached the ground.

But the two MEA linemen aren't the only utility workers going above and beyond the regular job description this month.

On May 22 in Indiana, James Hugart, a lineman for SCI REMC, helped rescue a freelance tree trimmer who had been pinned by a tree limb, which was cutting the blood flow to his legs. According to Fox 59, the fire department called the utility company because the fire truck couldn't fit in the space needed to get to the trapped man.

Although the utility truck wasn’t able to fit in the space either, Hugart was able to get the truck close enough to the tree and then reach the man from the truck’s bucket. The man was reportedly flown to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, according to the news source.