After reading a Facebook post Saturday morning that got tens of thousands of comments and shares, Jordan Seidhom loaded up his black Robinson R44 helicopter with supplies and set off with his son to join the post-Hurricane Helene rescue efforts underway in western North Carolina.
"I thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help," Seidhom told Nexstar's WJZY.
Both Seidhom and his son, who is a high school junior, are volunteer members of the Sandhills Volunteer Fire Department in Pageland, South Carolina. The elder Seidhom is a Class 1 certified law enforcement officer and a pilot with nearly 1,400 flight hours.
Once they reached the Lake Lure area on Saturday, Seidhom landed his chopper at the nearest airport and met with several law enforcement officers and first responders to determine where help was needed and coordinate communications channels.
On Sunday, Seidhom said his son spotted a lady waving for help as they were flying by.
"I asked him, I said, 'Hey, is she waving for help or she just waving?' He said, 'No, I think she's waving for help,'" Seidhom said.
In video Seidhom provided to WJZY, he left the chopper to greet the woman and her husband and returned with a game plan shortly after.
According to the recorded audio, Seidhom told his son, "Hey, I want you to let me get in. You step out and go out, help her in, put her bag in the back, get her strapped in. I'm going to take her down, come back, and I'll take him. I'll come back and then I'll get you, OK?"
Seidhom told the outlet he was concerned about putting too much weight on the driveway and it crumbling. He then left his son and the woman's husband to fly three minutes away to a group of first responders along the river.
"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. I told him who I was, who I was with, just a local volunteer," Seidhom said.
He said the man was from an out-of-state fire department who'd traveled to North Carolina to help with the rescue efforts.
"I told him my background experience, law enforcement, firefighting, and pilot, and he immediately started helping with coordination," Seidhom said. "He gave me radio frequencies to coordinate with them on, set up a landing area for me to come back with the other victim, and just basically started the rescue efforts; the policies and procedures that you would take coordinating with someone from an outside source or outside agency. And in the middle of the whole conversation and them blocking the road off, I was greeted by the — at that time I didn't know — but the Lake Lure fire chief, or assistant chief, maybe. And he shut down the whole operation."
WJZY reported that Seidhom later positively identified the Lake Lure fire official from the town's website, but the outlet made the decision not to name the individual at this time.
Though the station made numerous attempts to reach the fire official for comment, and the town confirmed that it had received the requests for comment, no one from the town ultimately responded.
Seidhom said the Lake Lure fire official asked who he was, and he gave him his background experience in law enforcement and firefighting.
"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 said.
Although he tried to deescalate the situation, Seidhom said the fire official ordered him to leave and not return.
"If that's what you want us to do, we'll leave, no issue," he told WJZY. "And I explained to him that I left my son on the side of the mountain, and I left another victim. I was going to go back and bring them. It was already set up for the landing spot and then I would get out of his area. He told me I wasn't going to go back up the mountain to get them; I was going to leave them there."
When he asked the official for a specific reason why he was ordering him to stop his rescue efforts, Seidhom said the man said, "You're interfering with my operation."
Seidhom said he told the official he was going back to get his copilot.
"He said, 'If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you're going to be arrested,'" Seidhom said. "I said, 'Well, sir, I'm going back to get my copilot, I don't know what to tell you.'"
The father of two got back into his helicopter, flew back up the mountain, and picked his son up. He told the woman's husband what had happened with the Lake Lure fire official and said the official had told him the fire department's ground crew would walk up the mountain to rescue him "in a few hours."