Local authorities have threatened to arrest a volunteer pilot and former law enforcement officer, Jordan Seidhom, after he rescued those stranded from flooding in North Carolina.
Seidhom was propelled to action after he learned of a family stranded on a mountain.
According to Queen City News, the family ran out of water a day earlier and had enough food to last for less than two days.
Seidhom told Queen City News Chief Investigator Jody Barr, “I thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help.”
The following day, Seidom and his son, who serves as his copilot, continued their missions. They had received multiple social media messages, phone calls, and text messages from those whose family members were in need of rescuing.
“I spoke with my son, which is my copilot. I said, ‘Hey do you want to go back out and try to help today?’ And his response was, ‘There’s so many messages. I don’t think we can’t not go help,’” Seidhom told the news outlet.
One operation risked straining the helicopter, forcing Seidhom to carry down a couple one at a time before going back for his son.
“Hey, I want you to let me get in, you step out and go out, help her in, put her bag in the back, get her strapped in,” a video shows Seidhom telling his son. “I’m going to take her down, come back and I’ll take him, I’ll come back and then I’ll get you, okay?”
Seidhom told Queen City News, “I originally left my son, copilot, on the side of the mountain. It was kind of unstable, so I didn’t want to put more weight on the helicopter to lift back off. So, I left my son with the other victim. And I was just going to take one person down at the time.”
Upon landing, Seidhom was approached by a fire official.
“I told him my background experience, law enforcement, firefighting, and pilot and he immediately started helping with coordination. He gave me radio frequencies to coordinate with them on, set up a landing area for me to come back with the other victim, and just basically started the rescue efforts; the policies and procedures that you would take coordinating with someone from an outside source or outside agency,” Seidhom said. “And in the middle of the whole conversation and them blocking the road off, I was greeted by the – at that time I didn’t know – but the Lake Lure fire chief, or assistant chief, maybe. And he shut down the whole operation.”
The official told Seidhom to leave, despite Seidhom explaining his background and detailing his coordination with local law enforcement the day prior for other rescue efforts.
“I’m going back and getting my copilot,” Seidhom said, noting that the official then said, “If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested.” I said, ‘Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot, I don’t know what to tell you.’”
The official called over two law enforcement officers.
“At that point, I had to make a decision,” Seidhom described. “I have a victim, I have my son, and I politely asked the officers, told him the situation again, explained everything, told them who I’d been coordinating with, and I said, ‘Hey if I go back up and get this victim and bring him down to this landing spot that other emergency personnel have designated, am I going to be arrested? And the officers’ response was, ‘Man, I really don’t know what to do in this situation.’ I said, ‘So you can’t tell me if I’m going to get arrested or not?’ And he said, ‘Man, I’ve I’m not sure what to do.’”
“They came back over and said, ‘Hey, man, we can’t tell you to go get the victim. We can’t even ask you to go get the victim, but we can tell you if you come back with the victim, we’ll have you a designated landing spot and we’ll make sure they don’t come over here,” Seidhom added.
Seidhom flew back to the mountain to get his son and told the other victim what happened between him and the fire official.
As Queen City News described: “Seidhom took off and looked back at the husband, standing helpless in his crumbling driveway, as the help he thought would come for him, flew away.”
Seidhom explained to the news outlet that the fire official told him that the ground crew could walk up the mountainside in a few hours. The father said it would only be a three-minute flight to rescue the man.
