Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2016 2:31 pm

When Orville Moore flew home to Powell on Aug. 20 after a two-day Civil Air Patrol exercise in Laramie, he had no idea he would be participating in a real search and rescue the next day.

But it was no exercise when Moore, a squadron commander for the Civil Air Patrol, got a call at 6 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 21, saying he and his crew were needed in a search for a 12-year-old boy who had been lost in the Big Horn Mountains since the morning before.

Three patrol crews contributed a total of 197 hours in the search for Benjamin Kellett of Powell, not counting an additional 12 hours worked by the incident command crew, Moore said.

“We were actively involved in that,” Moore said. “I got the call at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. My local crew was tied up, so I had to fly to Sheridan to pick up two people there, then we flew back to the mountain.”

That search was organized by the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office and the Sheridan County Search and Rescue Team. Kellett was found and rescued by a National Guard team in a Blackhawk helicopter at about 7 p.m. Aug. 21.

Moore said he flew a total of 11.6 hours, including the flight time to and from the search area, and he and his crew put 6.3 hours each into the search.

Another patrol crew from Gillette also helped with the search, and a third plane from Jackson, equipped with forward-looking infrared technology (FLIR), was on its way to help search for the boy when the crew was informed that he had been found and rescued, and the plane flew back to Jackson, he said.

But that wasn’t the end of the need for Civil Air Patrol services.

The patrol was called back to the Big Horn Mountains the next day, Monday, Aug. 22, to help with another search for a second lost hiker, 20-year-old Daniel Paulsen of Chicago.

Paulsen was first reported missing at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20 — the same day that Kellett went missing. He had been seen last in the Tee Pee Flats area near Paintrock Creek, east of Hyattville.

Paulsen got lost earlier in the day when the other hikers in his group walked ahead of him, and he took a wrong turn that led him him off the trail.

A patrol plane from Cheyenne responded to that search on Monday, Aug. 22, as did the Jackson crew in the plane with the forward infrared radar system.

Although the Cheyenne team arrived first, “they did not find him until a second plane with FLIR came,” said Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn. “They found a heat signature under a canopy of trees” and determined that was likely where Paulsen was, Blackburn said.

The Jackson crew related that information. The National Guard team — back in the air after taking required time to sleep and maintain the Blackhawk — then picked up some members of the Big Horn County Search and Rescue Team and flew to the rescue. They found Paulsen at about 1:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22.

Rescuers gave Paulsen some water and snacks and transported him back to the trailhead, where he was examined by a medical team, Blackburn said.

“We credit Civil Air Patrol with the find,” Blackburn said.

The forward-looking infrared system that detected Paulsen’s body heat accomplished that from an elevation of about 1,000 feet, Moore said, since Civil Air Patrol planes generally fly no lower than 1,000 feet during a search.

“That was a hard ceiling in this case, because the helicopters fly below them,” he said.

That equipment is so sensitive that it can detect the heat from an airplane engine two or three days after a crash, Moore said.

While waiting for rescuers, Paulsen had gathered wood and leaves into a pile for a signal fire, and when he heard the Blackhawk helicopter, he lit it to help guide rescuers to him, Blackburn said.

Once on the ground, the Blackhawk crew used their fire extinguishers and all the water they had on board, except for what they gave to Paulsen, to put the fire out, Blackburn said.

“Then they notified the interagency fire dispatch that there was probably going to be a fire there, because they were unable to get it completely out,” he said.

The Forest Service didn’t immediately respond, and about three days later, the fire rekindled and burned about a quarter of an acre before it was extinguished, Blackburn said.

Moore said he was on his way to the search on Monday, Aug. 22, picking up a crew member in Ten Sleep, when he received word that Paulsen had been found.

Combined with the search and rescue exercise in Laramie and the previous day’s search for Kellett, those were some busy days, he said.

Blackburn said a third rescue was underway Sunday, Aug. 21, at the same time searchers were looking for both hikers.

Derick Douglas Lehman, a hang-glider from Gillette, was preparing for a glide near the radar site on Medicine Mountain at 9:54 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 21 when a sudden gust of wind picked him up off the ground, flipped him over backward and dragged him over some rocks.

“He was broke up pretty good,” Blackburn said.

Rescuers from the North Big Horn Search and Rescue Team responded and reached him just before noon. Team members prepared Lehman for transport and took him to a waiting ambulance before joining the South Big Horn Search and Rescue Team in the search for Paulsen.

The North Big Horn team is based in Lovell; the South Big Horn Team is based in Basin.

“We had three search and rescues going on at the same time within about a 50 square mile area, which is kind of weird,” he said. “I’ve had two at the same time, but never three.”

The Civil Air Patrol, formed in the late 1930s, is an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.

Moore said the patrol is recruiting new volunteers. Interested people don’t have to be pilots; they can serve as scanners and observers as well. For more information, contact Moore at 254-0977.