By JAMES DARCY
NAS Patuxent River Public Affairs Department

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD—No guests attended HM3 Sean Neuroth's Oct. 10 reenlistment ceremony. Attendance was hindered, however, by the fact that the reenlistment occurred at the end of a rope, 200 feet below a Search and Rescue helicopter flying over the station at 60 knots.

A SAR corpsman with five years in the Navy, Neuroth had decided to take his reenlist oath during a "short haul" rescue maneuver, a technique that the Pax River SAR team routinely practices.

During a short haul, a rescuer rappels from the UH-3H SAR helicopter to a victim on the ground up to 250 feet below. For the Oct. 10 exercise, the victim was Lt. Robert Goodwin, SAR team flight surgeon from the Naval Medical Clinic here, and Neuroth was his rescuer.

The rescuer attaches to the victim, then the helicopter rises out of its hover and flies off with the pair dangling at the end of the line below, in search of a suitable landing zone. The technique is used when there is no safe place to land near a victim and treetop heights prevent the use of the helicopter's 100-foot hoist line.

Goodwin began administering the oath to Neuroth shortly after the two were lifted off the ground, and continued as the UH-3H flew a circuit over the station. Neuroth worked to keep his right hand up for the oath while simultaneously using his left to prevent he and Goodwin from spinning at the end of the line. "We could hear each other quite well," he said, in the relative calm so far beneath the spinning rotors.

When the oath was completed, the two were set down in a landing zone at the north end of the airfield, where Neuroth's wife, HM3 Shelly Neuroth, was waiting with their year-old son to congratulate him.

"It just sounded like a fun way to do the reenlistment," said Neuroth, who came up with the short haul idea. Fun was a big part of why he opted to re-up for another three years, he added. "I love the Navy, I'm enjoying myself, so why stop?"

The 26-year-old native of Jacksonville, Fla., also draws inspiration from his father, who retired from the Navy as a master chief petty officer and instilled in his son a sense of pride in the service. The younger Neuroth joined the Navy to follow his father's example, he said, as well as to get away from home and have some adventure.

Neuroth decided to become a SAR corpsman when he was assigned to Pax River two years ago. During his previous assignment, he was serving as a clinic lab technician. "I wanted to do some more physical stuff, something that was more of a challenge. And I knew I'd get to fly," he said.

He said he now hopes to stay with SAR for his entire Navy career, which will last "as long as they'll keep me."

—USN—

Photo by James Darcy
Lt. Robert Goodwin, left, administers the reenlistment oath to HM3 Sean Neuroth at the end of a rope 200 feet below a UH-3H Search and Rescue helicopter.