MEA crewmembers receive regional safety award

PALMER — An Matanuska Electric Association crew gained recognition last month for saving a man from a plane lofted in a group of trees in Meadow Lakes May 4, 2014.

Tony Hardwick, Glen Durkee, David Roby, Steve Willis and Eddie Taunton earned MEA the 2015 Safety Heroism Award from the Northwest Public Power Association, an organization that represents utility districts in the Western United States and Canada. The award recognizes cooperatives whose employees volunteer in situations where their help prevents serious injury.

That is just what the MEA linemen did last year when Edward T. Merren of Wasilla attempted to take off from a grass runway last spring. Merren’s Taylorcraft plane was seized by a crosswind, which forced the aircraft into a group of nearby birch trees, where it was suspended 50 feet above the ground.

Emergency vehicles were unable to reach the site due to the muddy conditions of the runway, but an MEA boom truck was towed near the scene with the help of a local man’s tracked vehicle. The MEA crew then extended the bucket on the boom truck up to the aircraft and securely lowered Merren to the ground. Merren sat in his plane for approximately three hours before being rescued, but was uninjured from the incident.

As director of operations, Taunton devised the plan for reaching Merren, while serving as a liaison between the MEA crew and the emergency responders. Linemen Hardwick, Durkee and Roby then arrived with the bucket truck, and were able to reach Merren with the supervision and direction of safety manager Willis.

The linemen initially stabilized the plane by tying it off to tree trunks, and then hooked Merren into a safety harness before lowering him seven feet into the bucket.

On the ground, Merren was visibly rattled by the incident, but hugged the linemen and thanked them for their help.

He later hired a helicopter to lift his plane from the treetops.

Contact Kaden Weaver at 352-2270 or kaden.weaver@frontiersman.com