West Virginia Guardsmen use ingenuity to rescue stranded mother, baby

West Virginia Guardsmen use ingenuity to rescue stranded mother, baby
By Staff Sgt. Sherree Grebenstein
West Virginia National Guard


BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.V., (2/14/10) - Necessity has often been called the mother of invention.

Just ask two West Virginia National Guard Soldiers who found themselves attempting to rescue a mother and her four week-old premature baby stranded at home in Morgan County.

The back-to-back blizzards socked the Eastern Panhandle of the state with more than three feet of snow in some areas.

To reach the pair in the early morning hours of Feb. 10, Staff Sgt. Harry F. Accor III and Spc. Derek C. Folk, two medics with the 201st Field Artillery Battalion based in Fairmont, W.Va., fashioned two pairs of snowshoes from pine tree branches and clothes lines.

What makes the feat perhaps even more amazing is that Spc. Folk Performed the rescue with three bones broken in his right hand.

During a rescue mission earlier in the week, the Soldier sustained the injury while helping to evacuate a bi-lateral amputee with diabetes from his home in Berkeley Springs.
read more here
http://www.ng.mil/news/archives/2010/02/021610-West.aspx