An Office of Secure Transportation (OST) Federal Agent at the Eastern Command recently piloted a Blackhawk helicopter in an emergency air evacuation mission that rescued two stranded hikers from the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee.
National Nuclear Security Administration
February 23, 2023
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An Office of Secure Transportation (OST) Federal Agent at the Eastern Command recently piloted a Blackhawk helicopter in an emergency air evacuation mission that rescued two stranded hikers from the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee.
Federal Agent Samuel Gibson, a 2022 graduate of OST’s nuclear materials courier program, is also a first lieutenant with the Tennessee National Guard’s Assault Helicopter Battalion in Knoxville. He responded with a medical flight crew after notification that hikers needed assistance in the Sampson Mountain Wilderness Area, south of Johnson City, Tenn. The two were stranded at night in an area surrounded by cliffs and drop offs. Local law enforcement could not access the hikers, so air support was requested. It was the most recent in a series of assistance missions Gibson has flown.
“In the New Year’s Eve rescue, myself, another pilot, two medics and a crew chief were called up to locate and extract two hikers who were dangerously hypothermic,” he said. “Another mission in our wheelhouse is firefighting operations. In late March through early April of 2022, myself and many others of Task Force Smokey worked with ground firefighting units to contain a wildfire in Wares Valley, near the Gatlinburg area. I am a Platoon Leader for one of the units that makes up the Task Force. We have the honor and privilege of being able to operate with the National Parks Service and other local agencies to perform real world missions. In the past year we also assisted rescue missions in Kentucky with floods and often mobilize for hurricane relief for surrounding states.”
NNSA Assistant Deputy Administrator for Secure Transportation Vincent Fisher said, “Agent Gibson is a hero and I thank him for his service. He and his team saved lives. I’m honored to know that bravery, dedication, and service before self still rules the day in people like him and the men and women of his military unit.”
Gibson has been with the Tennessee National Guard since college. He graduated flight school and joined Task Force Smokey in Knoxville in 2019 and he became an OST Federal Agent in November of 2022. He stays busy with OST missions, and he must maintain minimum flight hours per quarter for the Guard.
“So, I very often find myself leaving right from work at OST to drive to the airbase for some flight training missions,” he said. “The service aspect of both OST and the Guard are something I’ve always been drawn to. While OST provides protection in a much more covert and preventative, proactive way, the guard provides protection in a reactive way, helping those who have no one else to help them. I get to turn one of the worst days of people’s lives into a better one, because who doesn’t love a free helicopter ride? So, I see OST and the Guard as two sides of the same coin. Their missions are to keep the American population safe and to help where no one else can go.”