For those of you who do not know Sunday is the day I write about someone who deserves our praise and/or respect. Today’s hero is U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Troy May.
On the morning of Aug. 28, Ursula Bannister, 79, chose to make her yearly pilgrimage to High Rock Lookout near Ashford, Washington, where her mother’s ashes were laid.
“I know the trail very well, and there are always many people there,” Bannister said.” When I couldn’t find anyone to accompany me on this outing, I just went by myself.”
As she descended the trail after having lunch, Bannister accidentally stepped into a hole. Feeling pain as her leg gave out, she cried for help. She knew something had gone terribly wrong with her ankle, and that she wouldn’t be able to make it down the mountain. Her only hope was that someone would hear her pleas for help.
Fortuitously, Troy May and his friend happened by.
“My first thought was if I could carry her down, I should carry her down and get her there as quickly as I can,” said May.
Acting on that thought, May lifted Bannister onto his back and began carrying her down the 1.6 miles of steep trail. It wasn’t easy. May was wearing cowboy boots that were not intended for such an intense job, and he had to continually pause on the way down to ensure that Bannister would not have too turbulent a descent. And the force of gravity made it hard for May to keep the injured woman on his back.
The airman carried Bannister most of the way down, but he also enlisted the help of his friend Layton Allen in carrying her some of the way.
“She was definitely in a lot of pain. I told her just a few more steps, and we’d get her there,” May said.
At the foot of the mountain, they put the elderly woman into her car before elevating her foot and taking the wheel. Thirty minutes down the road, they met the search and rescue team who applied ice to Bannister’s foot. They then continued to a nearby hospital where she waited for her family to join her.
Bannister broke her leg in three places on that fateful trek and has “more than 10 screws and a plate in her leg,” according to NBC. She told the news outlet that her rescue shows “how good at heart the American people are.”
Just days later, May and Allen received a call from Bannister expressing her thanks for what they had done. She told them both how much she appreciated them and shared that she was recovering after surgery.
“I truly felt that these two guys were meant to be there to save me, and that sort of swam in my subconscious at the time,” Bannister further said, “I considered them my angels.”
“An angel,” and indeed, a hero … Troy May.
10/27/24