70-Year-Old Hiker Grandma Was Spun 170 Times on a Helicopter Rescue in Arizona. Then She Sued for $2,000,000 and Won

Remember that 70-year-old lady who got taken for a ride after a helicopter rescue? Well, she’s poised to take home up to $2,000,000 in a settlement.

Katalin Metro is an avid hiker who found herself in some trouble on Piestewa Peak mountain in Arizona. The news footage of her rescue from the hiking trail went viral online, and now Metro will pocket a wild amount of money from the incident.

If you were online in 2019, you probably saw the news clip of her rescue on social media somewhere. People on the Internet are nothing if not consistent. A video like that can be turned humorous by a quick headline up top or a well-placed edit.

The web might have been laughing together about the ordeal. But, Metro was not as amused. She says that the flight crew was negligent during her rescue. Apparently, she got a ton of swelling and bruising from being spun high off the ground more than 170 times. Not to mention the infamy of being in all those memes.

Metro originally sued for $2,000,000, but the Phoenix City Council approved a settlement for $450,000 back on December 1. At the time of writing, we don’t have confirmation on what the final number ended up being. 

One thing is for sure, they’ll be showing that footage in fire and rescue training classes for years after this whole thing played out in the media.

What Happened To The Hiking Grandma During That Helicopter Rescue?

As most viral videos go, it’s surprising to get this level of backstory when it comes to Metro. All of us saw the clip on social media. But, clearly that wouldn’t be the end of the story after her injuries. 

Taking into account Metro’s age, a lot of people online think she’s getting what she deserves from the City of Phoenix. But, the rescue folks on the ground had a lot of explaining to do. During a press conference, here’s what the Phoenix Police Department’s chief pilot had to say.

“There are times when we bring the helicopter up from the ground, it will start to spin, so we have a line attached to the basket to help prevent that,”chief pilot Paul Apolinar said to the press.

“As the basket comes up and nears the helicopter, the basket will start to interact with the rotor wash of the helicopter,” he continued. “That is when it tends to spin. It wants to windmill.” 

In addition to his explanation, another pilot who was present for the rescue operation gave a take. It feels like they tried their best and something embarrassing still happened for all parties involved.  

“This has happened in the past, but it’s been quite a while,” another Phoenix Police pilot associated with the operation added. “In the past, we kind of learned some of the techniques to get rid of it, and one — you probably actually see it in the video — is when they start to lower the load, and it actually does start to stop, and then we slowly brought it back up, but it gets into the same downwash from the aircraft, started to spin again.” 

So, Metro gets her settlement and the pilots in that helicopter got a painful reminder of the margin for error in their rescue duties. Thankfully, she’s stopped spinning now.

(featured image: Kuster & Wildhaber Photography, CC BY-ND 2.0)

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