Helicopter pilot's precision landings help save injured hiker

The third time Terry Mercer landed his helicopter Tuesday morning, he felt it rock backward, a little like a teeter-totter.

"I thought I had about 36 inches of skid room, but it turns out it was more like 10 or 12," Mercer said. "It was not a good feeling, but that's when I realized how critical it was to be precise."

He fired up the blades and repositioned the 37-foot aircraft on the 25-foot-wide pinnacle. That was his fourth landing on the rock, and before the three-hour rescue mission was complete, he would land on it eight more times, ferrying search-and-rescue crews to the site of an injured hiker on Red Mountain in Washington County.

"This is probably one of the more satisfying landings I've done," said Mercer, who flew for the Navy for 25 years and has flown for the Utah Highway Patrol for the past nine. "It took a lot of effort and coordination."

Mercer scoured that same slot canyon three times the day before, looking for Jim Williamson, a trail runner who went missing Sunday afternoon. From the sky, he was nowhere to be seen.

"It was a hot day, so it's possible he crawled under some brush down there," Mercer said.

Police said Williamson checked in with a friend around noon Sunday and told her he was just above the Three Ponds area in Red Mountain and was going to head back to his car. He told her he was low on water but thought he could make it back, police said.

Then, somewhere along the way, Williamson fell off the trail and landed in the narrow slot canyon.

By 4 p.m. Sunday, it was clear to people on the ground that something was wrong. Williamson was unreachable on his phone, and he had not checked in.

"By then, we knew he had gone missing," said Chief Deputy Rob Tersigni of the Washington County Sheriff's Office, which coordinated the rescue efforts.

The sheriff's department dispatched search-and-rescue teams, and Mercer was brought in as the lone pilot to deposit them strategically on Red Mountain. The 20-member team focused on the slot canyons near Gunsight Trail all day Monday.

On his way to the summit with a hiking team Tuesday morning, an officer with Washington County Search and Rescue pointed to the slot canyons.

"He signaled me and said, 'Let's check that slot out,' " Mercer said. "I flew it three times yesterday, but we're flying over it, and they saw him down there."

Williamson was in the depths of the slot canyon, hundreds of feet below.