Search & Rescue

Updated Post — May 22, 2021 | 4:50 

Family of the missing Geraldine “Gerry” Nelson called off the search for her on Friday.

The 78-year-old Alaska Native woman went missing Sunday evening in the Lemon Creek area. She is a Juneau resident but is originally from Angoon.

All week, there was a widespread search and rescue effort by family, community members and law enforcement.

On Saturday, Juneau Police said that a member of the search dog team found Nelson’s body Friday afternoon. They said her death doesn’t appear suspicious.

Her grandson, Preston Nelson posted on social media Friday afternoon thanking everyone for their help in searching for her, including the dog who found his grandmother and the dog’s handler.

Original Post — May 21, 2021 | 3:45 p.m.

The widespread search and rescue effort for Geraldine “Gerry” Nelson continued on Friday.

The elderly Juneau resident went missing Sunday evening in the Lemon Creek area.

The search is currently concentrated in Lemon Creek and out to Fred Meyer. Those are areas the family has found her in the past. The last time Nelson went missing, she was found in Lemon Creek.

Alaska State Trooper Josh Bentz gave an update at the Friday morning check-in. He said that the rain will not affect Nelson’s scent or hinder the search dogs’ ability to trail Nelson’s scent.

Bentz suggests that people who are looking for Nelson keep doing what they’re doing.

“Look under the porches, look in boats, look in cars,” he said. “Anywhere where somebody could climb in and curl up and fall asleep.”

The search party is also organizing door-to-door searches in the Switzer Village Mobile Park.

At the Friday morning check-in, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Peterson came to offer a prayer and support for the search.

“Creator, we ask this in your name that we find Gerry, we bring her home, that we reunite her with her family. And we surround her with the love, the strength that she needs ‘til we can find her,” he said.

Peterson said that he’s heard of people getting pulled over while driving slowly around neighborhoods in the search for Nelson. He asks that people not search for Nelson alone.

“Not only do you have to worry about bears but sometimes you have to worry about people,” he said. “And if they think you’re up to no good, it’s a lot easier to explain if you’re not alone.”

The search party has bear spray so people who want to help search but don’t have safety gear can still help.

Ann Stepetin, who is helping organize the search, said people can help in other ways too.

“Our biggest request now is gas money because people have been burning up their fuel driving and driving and driving,” she said.

Other items that can help the search party are rain gear, extra layers, fruit and bear spray.

There have been a lot of false sightings of Gerry Nelson, so Stepetin asked for people to take a flyer and see what she looks like.

And to just keep an eye out when out  when walking or driving.

After five days, there’s been no let-up in the search for Geraldine “Gerry” Nelson. The 78-year-old Juneau woman was last seen at her home in the Lemon Creek area on Sunday.

On Wednesday afternoon, Geraldine’s grandson Preston Nelson was searching the grass, brush and standing water just off Glacier Highway as traffic whizzed by.

“Some nights, we stay up all night. Other nights, we’re up until 1:30, 3 o’clock in the morning,” he said. “At this point, I’m searching every nook and cranny that I could find, and going through everything twice, three, four times and trying to get as much evidence or some sort of sign that she’s still around here somewhere.”

Preston Nelson said he has taken off work this week to search for her.

Volunteer searchers and family have been working with the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to coordinate a search. The tribe has been providing meals, equipment like flashlights and safety vests, and a staging area.

Juneau Police, Alaska State Troopers, Juneau Mountain Rescue and a Coast Guard helicopter have concentrated their search in and around Lemon Creek’s nearby woods and trails. Multiple teams with Southeast Alaska Dogs Organized for Ground Search (SEADOGS) also started searching early in the morning and continued well into the evening.

Trooper Josh Bentz says they are assuming that Nelson is still walking around.

“We believe that she is mobile, which means that she could wander into an area that we just finished searching, right after we searched it. So, we’re researching some areas and we’re searching new areas that haven’t been touched yet,” Bentz said.

Geraldine Nelson, who also goes by Gerry, is an Alaska Native elder who is approximately 5′ 1″ and 125 pounds. She has shoulder-length hair and wears glasses. 

Juneau Police Department asks anyone who sees her to call them at 586-0600.

A medevac plane flew above Igiugig last August. It was late, around 11 p.m., but a child needed to be transported to Anchorage for intensive care.

Ida Nelson had just finished taking a steam when she heard the plane overhead.

“Somebody needed extended care, and the only way to get it is to get them on a medevac and out to Anchorage,” she said during last week’s Red Cross Real Heroes awards ceremony.

When the plane didn’t land, she went to the runway manager. The runway lights were out.

“I was like, ‘Well, can I light up the runway?’” Nelson said. “He was like, ‘Well, you can try.’”

But the light from her lone four-wheeler wasn’t going to be enough. As they communicated with the LifeMed pilot, Nelson’s neighbor started to get people to the airport.

“She was busy calling everybody in the village, waking them up and asking them, ‘Hey, run to the runway. We need to light up the runway so the plane can land,'”Nelson said. “Everybody came from the ages of like eight to 70 years old.”

Residents lined the runway with their vehicles to light the pilot’s way. The plane landed, and the child who needed care was transported to the hospital.

The story received international coverage. The Red Cross reached out to Nelson to offer her a Real Hero Award in the Alaska safety category.

Nelson said that for her, lighting up the runway is just another example of the community coming together.

“It’s something that we in Igiugig do constantly, like almost every day,” she said. “It’s just normal for us to go run out and help somebody when they need help. You don’t question the day or the time. If someone is in need you just go for help. That for us is — to me, at least, it’s normal. Someone needs help, they’re calling for help, you get up and go.”

There are 10 different categories for Alaska’s Red Cross Real Hero Awards, which started in 2000.

Nelson was one of 10 people to receive awards around the state. You can hear the stories of this year’s recipients at redcross.org.

Friends, family, law enforcement and search and rescue teams are still looking for an elderly Juneau woman who disappeared Sunday in the Lemon Creek area.

Geraldine Nelson, 78, was last seen at her home on Churchill Way late Sunday afternoon. She may have been wearing black pants and a black or light blue coat or sweater.

Juneau Police describe Nelson as an Alaska Native woman who is approximately 5′ 1″ and 125 pounds. She has shoulder length hair and wears glasses.

Community members who have been searching for her posted a flier saying that she goes by “Gerry” and is hard of hearing.

Granddaughter Heather Olsen said Nelson usually walks the streets in the Lemon Creek area. But she’s gone miles before.

Olsen said this isn’t the first time she has disappeared.

“It was about a month ago, we also reached out to Facebook to keep an eye out for her. She got lost in the woods near her place over in Lemon Creek,” Olsen said. “Someone had found her later that same night.”

Lt. Krag Campbell of the Juneau Police Department said it’s common for Nelson to be gone a long time.

“But it’s uncommon for her to be gone overnight,” Campbell said. “That’s the scary part.”

Juneau Police, Alaska State Troopers, SEADOGS, and a Coast Guard helicopter have searched the Lemon Creek area, including nearby woods and trails, over the last several days. Juneau Mountain Rescue was called in to help on Tuesday.

Olsen said about 25 people joined in the search Tuesday morning.

Campbell said Troopers currently have enough volunteers to help with an organized search. But he urges everybody else to be vigilant and keep an eye out for Nelson.

And, if others want to look for Nelson on their own, Campbell encourages them to stay safe and let others know where they’ll be going before they head out.

A Utah-based medevac company has settled a wrongful death lawsuit over a 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska that killed three crew members from Juneau.

Dylan Listberger of Juneau sued Guardian Flight over the death of his 30-year-old fiancée Stacie Rae Morse, a flight nurse who was 27 weeks pregnant at the time, according to the lawsuit filed earlier this year.

“The parties are happy to have the lawsuit concluded,” Sheldon Winters, the Juneau attorney who filed the suit on behalf of Listberger, wrote in an email to CoastAlaska. “The settlement terms are confidential.”

The twin-engine King Air turboprop was en route to the village of Kake to pick up a patient the evening of January 29, 2019. But federal investigators say during its approach it inexplicably veered to the right and dropped more than 2,500 feet in just 14 seconds.

It hit the water at high speed destroying the aircraft.

The bodies of 63-year-old pilot Patrick Coyle; 43-year-old paramedic Margaret Langston and Morse were never found. And investigators never established a cause for the crash.

The original lawsuit sought more than $100,000 for gross negligence against the company. But court filings on Wednesday indicate that the parties have settled for an undisclosed sum.

A spokesperson for Guardian Flight declined to comment “due to legal and confidentiality reasons.”

A Colorado man has died in the Alaska Range after falling into a crevasse.

Mason Stansfield of Ouray, Colorado was ski-mountaineering with a partner when he fell into the crevasse on Monday afternoon. The pair were near the Eldridge Glacier, east of Denali.

Denali National Park spokesperson Maureen Gualtieri says the crevasse Stansfield fell into was relatively large.

“The ranger that was lowered down in the crevasse estimates he was down a hundred feet or so,” Gualtieri said. “That’s a deep, relatively wide crevasse.”

According to Gualtieri, Stansfield’s partner used a two-way satellite communication device to request help. A ranger team had been flying in the range earlier in the day, so they were already packed and ready to respond.

Gualtieri says satellite communication advancements in recent years have removed some of the guesswork from rescue operations.

“Back and forth communication about what’s going on, so we know what gear to bring. It also provides the exact location of where the accident took place, so there was no looking around,” she said.

Gualtieri says Stansfield had worked as a guide on Denali in the past, so he was familiar with glacier travel and the Alaska Range. He and his skiing partner were on a personal ten-day trip when the fall occurred.

Mason Stansfield was 28 years old. His body was recovered from the glacier Monday evening.