A 77-year-old man with a broken leg was hoisted from the Sawtooth Mountains near Redfish Lake by an Idaho Army National Guard aviation crew Thursday afternoon, turning a remote injury into a coordinated flight to medical care.
The State Aviation Group crew lifted the man from the mountain area and flew him to Stanley Airport. Civilian medical personnel met him there and took over his care, according to accounts released Friday.
The Guard did not identify the man or say how he broke his leg. Officials also did not release his condition after the airport handoff. What they did provide was a clear sequence: a mountain rescue, an airborne extraction and a transfer to civilian responders in Stanley.
Four Idaho aviators carried out the hoist
The crew included Chief Warrant Officer 3 Theron Cameron, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Patrick Perry, Officer Candidate Jess Adamson and Staff Sgt. Adam Brundy. All four were identified in the Guard’s account of the mission.
The rescue took place Thursday afternoon in the Sawtooth Mountains near Stanley. The injured man was near Redfish Lake, one of central Idaho’s best-known outdoor destinations, when the State Aviation Group was called to assist.
A hoist mission is different from simply landing near a patient. In this case, the published account says the crew lifted the man and then transported him to the airport. The reports do not say precisely where he was located, how far he was from a road or what conditions the crew faced at the rescue site.
Those unanswered details matter because mountain incidents can vary sharply. The confirmed facts are narrower but still substantial: the patient was 77, he had a broken leg, a Guard aviation crew reached him, and civilian responders were waiting when the helicopter arrived in Stanley.
The mission was the Guard’s 10th rescue this year
Thursday’s operation was not an isolated assignment for the State Aviation Group. It was the Idaho Army National Guard’s second successful search-and-rescue mission of the week, its third of September and its 10th of 2026.
That pace puts the Redfish Lake hoist in a broader public-safety picture. Idaho’s mountains draw residents and visitors into places where an injury can require more than a standard ambulance response. The published mission count shows the Guard’s aviation crews have repeatedly been called into that gap this year.
The official account did not say which agency first received the call or how long the operation lasted. It also did not name the civilian medical provider that accepted the patient at Stanley Airport. Keeping those limits clear is important. The successful result officials confirmed was the extraction and transfer, not a medical prognosis.
A short flight completed a larger rescue chain
The final handoff at Stanley Airport was the practical end of the Guard crew’s part of the mission. The helicopter got the injured man out of the Sawtooths, but civilian responders remained responsible for further treatment.
That division of work is easy to miss in a brief rescue notice. The flight crew, the airport handoff and the medical team were separate links in one response. If any link is missing, a person with a serious injury can remain far from care.
For the injured man near Redfish Lake, the chain held. Cameron, Perry, Adamson and Brundy completed the hoist, reached Stanley Airport and placed him in civilian hands. It was one rescue on one Thursday afternoon, but also the 10th time this year that Idaho Guard aviation personnel completed a search-and-rescue mission.