WASHINGTON - Giving up his seat to a wounded soldier, a courageous Army officer strapped himself to the side of an Apache helicopter gunship that airlifted them out of a furious firefight in Iraq, the military said yesterday.
The Army called it an "unusual casualty evacuation," but Chief Warrant Officer Allen Crist's selfless act goes way beyond heroism.
Realizing that Spec. Jeffrey Jamaleldine needed medical attention fast, Crist put the critically wounded man in his own spot on the two-seat Apache on Saturday.
Crist then rigged a harness to strap himself to the fuselage and crouched on the stubby left gun wing of the aircraft.
With Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Purtee at the controls and Crist hanging on for dear life, the Apache flew out of the battle zone. It kept low, about 200 feet, until it reached a field hospital, the military said.
Jamaleldine, 31, of Fort Smith, Ark., was later reported to be in stable condition, the Army said.
Crist, the co-pilot and gunner, of Warrensburg, Mo., and pilot Purtee, from Houston, came away unscathed.
Army officials could not immediately recall an Apache ever being used before for a medical evacuation - and certainly not with the co-pilot riding outside.
Crist and Purtee, from Company B, 1st Battalion, 149th Aviation Regiment, were part of a four-Apache team that came to help U.S. troops pinned down under heavy fire in the flashpoint town of Ramadi, about 50 miles west of Baghdad.
The heavily armored Apaches, using their 30-mm. cannon and wing-mounted rocket pods and miniguns, destroyed two tractor-trailers used as cover by the insurgents. The Army said the barrage "caused secondary explosions," indicating they were probably rigged as bombs.
As the battle dragged on, the Apaches took numerous hits from small-arms fire. The ground commander warned that he had a critically wounded soldier and that the medevac choppers had yet to arrive.
In a desperation move, Purtee and Crist landed their Apache in the middle of the firefight and put their daring, improvised plan into action.
After dropping off Jamaleldine at the field hospital, Crist and Purtee did not pause for congratulations.
They refueled, reloaded their weapons arsenal and flew back to rejoin the fight. |
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