Civilians attempting to help with search and rescue in southeast US threatened with arrest by officials

LAKE LURE, NC - Time was when if there was a natural disaster, emergency services personnel would take all the help they could get. In the case of Hurricane Helene, thousands of North Carolina residents were left stranded, cut off from travel, communications, and, most importantly, food and water. However, when a former law enforcement officer, Jordan Seidhom, flew his helicopter down into the North Carolina mountains to help, he was threatened with arrest by a local fire official in Lake Lure, North Carolina, according to NewsNation Now. 

The story began on Saturday, September 28, when he awoke and read a Facebook post about a family stranded on a mountain in Banner Elk, North Carolina. They had run out of water the day before and only had enough food to last a couple of days. Checking his mapping software, Seidhom found a place to land his helicopter. He loaded food and water into his chopper and headed toward Banner Elk. He was accompanied by his son, a high school junior. Both are Sandhills Volunteer Fire Department members in Pageland, South Carolina. Seldom is a Class 1 certified law enforcement officer and a pilot with nearly 1,400 hours of flight time. 

Upon arrival in the Lake Lure area, Seidhom landed at a small airport, where he met with multiple law enforcement officers and first responders to coordinate communications with them and find out where he should go to help. He left the supplies he had brought for the family and then took to the skies to see where he could help. 

His first rescue was two women who were stranded high up on a mountain with no food or water. He flew them to a community center with supplies and generator power. 

Seidhom located two other ladies at the community center from out of town and staying at an Airbnb. They had only one day’s worth of supplies, which was gone: no food, water, running water, or power. Seidhom flew them to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, where they were able to catch a flight home. 

After rescuing the four victims on Saturday, Seidhom and his son slept in a pilot lounge at a small nearby airport. When they awoke Sunday morning, they had been “inundated” with social media posts, phone calls, and text messages from people begging for help. Most were from family members of stranded people who got his number from Facebook. 

One woman left a message stating that her parents were “stuck there,” that she hadn’t heard from them in over a day, and she was clearly distraught. “If you receive this, please give me a call back. Thank you,” she said on a voicemail. 

Sensing the desperation in her voice, Seidhom called her back. 

“This is multiple phone calls I’ve received like this. Voicemails, text messages, and you could hear people desperate for help,” he told QC News. Someone on the ground coordinating with Seidhom texted him dozens of addresses where people were either missing or stranded. 

“I spoke with my son, which is my copilot,” he said. “I said, ‘Hey, do you want to go back out and try to help today?’ And his response was, ‘There’s so many messages. I don’t think we can’t not go help,’” his son replied, according to Seidhom. 

They got back into the helicopter and headed back toward Lake Lure. As they were flying, Seidhom’s son saw a woman waving for help. After ensuring it was safe to do so, Seidhom put the helicopter down on what was left of the driveway, most of which had been washed away by flood waters. 

Seidhom decided that due to the driveway's precarious condition, he would fly the elderly couple down one at a time, taking the woman first and then coming back for her husband. Seidhom left his son with the husband while he flew the elderly woman down to a parking lot, where he saw a group of first responders gathered. 

“Once we landed where emergency personnel were, I was met by a fire chief, or maybe a captain, and he asked me who I was, who I was with, just a local volunteer,” Seidhom said. He believed the man was from an out-of-state fire department and had come to North Carolina to help. 

After relating his law enforcement, firefighting, and flying experience to the official, Seidhom was given radio frequencies to coordinate with first responders. He also set up a landing area for when Seidhom returned with the other victim. "Just basically started the rescue efforts,” Seidhom said. 

After reviewing the procedures, Seidhom was greeted by someone whom he believed at the time to be the Lake Lure fire chief or perhaps the assistant chief, who promptly shut down the entire rescue operation. The man who gave the appearance of being on a power trip was later identified as Assistant Chief Chris Melton, according to Firehouse Magazine. 

It was then that things turned bizarre..Melton threatened Seidhorn with arrest if he didn’t leave the area. 

“He originally asked me who I was. I gave him the same information: who I was with, my background experience, law enforcement, and firefighting. And his response was, if you have that kind of experience, you should know that you should be coordinating with us. And I said, ‘I’ve been coordinating with everybody as I’ve been here just the day before, speaking with local law enforcement, other rescue personnel,” Seidhom recalled. 

Seidhom said he attempted to de-escalate the situation and asked how to coordinate with the Lake Lure Fire Department while he was assisting stranded people. Melton told him to leave and not come back. 

Seidhom explained that both his son and another victim were left on the side of the mountain and that he wanted to go back and bring the victim down. He explained that a landing zone was already set up, and then he would leave the area. The power-tripping assistant chief then told Seidholm he “wasn’t going to go back up the mountain to get them; I was going to leave them there.” 

When he asked for an explanation, the assistant chief said he was “interfering with my operation.” 

When Seidhom told him he was returning to get his copilot, Melton said, “If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested. 

“Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot; I don’t know what to tell you,” Seidhom replied. 

Melton then summoned two police officers and again threatened to arrest him if he flew back up the mountain. 

“At that point, I had to make a decision. I have a victim, I have my son, and I politely asked the officers, told him the situation again, explained everything, told them who I’d been coordinating with, and I said, ‘Hey if I go back up and get this victim and bring him down to this landing spot that other emergency personnel have designated, am I going to be arrested?” Seidholm asked. 

The officer expressed confusion, saying, “Man, I really don’t know what to do in this situation.” 

“So, you can’t tell me if I’m going to get arrested or not?” Seidhom asked, to which the officer replied again, “Man, I’m not sure what to do.” 

Before he took off, the out-of-state fire chief and fire captain he’d seen earlier told Seidhorn, “Hey man, we can’t tell you to get the victim. We can’t even ask you to go get the victim, but we can tell you if you come back with the victim, we’ll have you a designated landing spot, and we’ll make sure they don’t come back over here,” Seidhorn told QCN. 

Melton told Seidhom to go to the Rutherford County Airport and wait for FAA officials to meet him there. En route, he went back to the mountain to retrieve his son and told his husband what had transpired at the drop-off point. He explained that he could not fly him down the mountain but told him rescue officials knew his location. In other words, a three-minute flight turned into a multi-hour trek up dangerous terrain to rescue the man. 

Seidhom and his son flew to the airport, waiting for the FAA to arrive. They never did. 

“I did leave the Rutherford Airport. I knew at that point he had no jurisdiction; I was legal in what I was doing, and I was following all FAA guidelines and airspace guidelines. I was on private property,’ Seidhom explained. 

Shortly afterward, the FAA set up a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR), bizarre in the midst of a search and rescue operation that required all hands on deck. It was almost as if the government was trying to hide something. 

After the incident with the assistant fire chief, Seidhom decided to stop helping with search and rescue. 

However, by Monday, September 30, the TFR had been canceled, and Seidhom again loaded his Robinson R-22 with as much foot and water as it could hold and headed back to Lake Lure. 

Seidhom and his son joined the Carolina Emergency Response team, a group of volunteer pilots who staged at an airport in Hickory, North Carolina. 

“They’re basically begging for these helicopters,” Seidhom said, indicating a change of heart from the weekend before. He noted that military helicopters are too big to land in tight areas and on mountainsides where many rescues are needed. 

Seidhom slammed the Lake Lure fire official who banished him from the area and said by doing so, he put lives at risk. 

“Absolutely. There were other victims; as we were flying out leaving the area, we spotted within 300, 400 yards within their location that they just could not get access to that were waving for help as my son and I were leaving,” he said. 

When asked how that felt, Seidhom replied, “I can only imagine what people were thinking. You’ve been stranded for 24, 36 hours. No way to speak with anyone; you don’t know what’s going on, and you see a lifeline fly over, and they keep going. I can only imagine what they were thinking.” 

With the benefit of hindsight, Seidhom said he would have done something different. 

“I’m sorry, if I had to do it over again, I would have stopped, and I would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to arrest me,” he said. 

Apparently, FEMA is also doing the same thing, according to a couple of posts on X: