There are rescues and then there are RESCUES

Try to imagine this:  a helicopter being guided through a mountain pass in the dark and fog that has already prevented others by a C-130 aircraft dropping flares along the way.  With the crew wearing night-vision equipment, locating and picking up a man severely injured in a bear attack and again being guided through the pass by flares dropped from the fixed-wing aircraft.  Then refueling in mid-air before making it to an airport which was closed by the weather and flying to an alternate site.   All of this, in the dark in clouds and fog with a ceiling sometimes as low as 400 feet after two other attempts at the rescue had turned back because of the weather.

Here's the story the way the military tells it.  

The Anchorage Daily News version.