"That was a very technical situation for our members. I talked to many members yesterday.
They said they've never even been on Mummy Mountain at that point," McDade said.
"It's easy to get up to, but it's hard to get down, and so that's a perfect situation to use our hoist, put him in a hot seat, secure the area.
We were able to lift him up out of there and get him safely back down to the ground."
The operational framework relies on inter-agency cooperation between law enforcement aviation units and fire department rescue specialists.
"It's really a model of two agencies with no ego that work together, and the common theme is let's rescue people that need help," McDade said.
If a life-threatening scenario requires vertical extraction while the main aircraft is offline, Phoenix Fire plans to request assistance from partner agencies.
"If we get into a critical scene to where time truly is of the essence and we believe a hoist can make a big difference in this call, we're going to reach out to our mutual aid partners and ask them if they're available," McDade said.
Officials noted that contingency protocols have been established for every major peak across the Phoenix metropolitan area.
"We lose the hoist helicopter, but we have Plan A, B, C, D, and E set up," McDade said.
"We've played out every scenario on every mountain on what that would look like."
The department reiterated warnings to trail users as ambient temperatures consistently trigger city trail closures on high-risk routes.
