Word: wolcott
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...intersection was already filled with Somali fighters bombarding Wolcott's wreckage with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades. Facing directly into the enfilade, Maier's only defense was a light submachine gun, which he fired from the cockpit with his right hand. That left the pilot only his left hand to steady the chopper, while copilot Keith Jones struggled to load two injured Rangers aboard, then yelled at Maier to take off. Left behind were a handful of wounded Rangers, plus the bodies of Wolcott and his copilot, Donovan Briley, 33, of Little Rock, Arkansas...
...from the wreckage of Wolcott's chopper, pilot Dan Jollota was struggling to hold his aircraft steady while 15 Rangers "fast-roped" to the ground by sliding down a 40-ft. line at a rate only slightly more controlled than a free fall. In the cockpit, Jollota could hear the thunk-thunk-thunk of his rotors punctuated by the deadly whoosh of rocket-propelled grenades. With two Rangers still on the ropes, the chopper took a direct hit that chewed holes in a main rotor blade. The steel-nerved pilot bit off the impulse to flee. "It was remarkable," said...
...ground, the Rangers saw that Wolcott could not have crashed in a worse position. Smashed like a broken eggshell, the cockpit had hopelessly entangled the body of the pilot. To make matters worse, the craft had come to rest on a slight rise in the street, exposing anyone near it to the Somalis' devastating cross fire. "Dust got in my eyes from so many bullets popping off the walls," recalled Specialist John Waddell...
...fusillade increased, the Rangers ripped up the bulletproof Kevlar mats from the floor of Wolcott's Black Hawk to fashion a makeshift bunker. The shield, however, provided only the barest protection, as Master Sergeant Scott Fales, 36, swiftly discovered. An Army special-forces medic who has saved 88 lives during his career, Fales was working on several wounded men when he felt himself slammed to the street. A bullet had ripped through his leg. Hunkering down next to the wreckage, he quickly bandaged the wound and then resumed tending his comrades...
While Fales divided his attention between saving lives and fighting off the Somalis -- "I'd fire a few rounds to push them back, then put my rifle across my lap and turn around to do my medical duties" -- several Rangers pulled at the crumpled wreckage to free Wolcott and the copilot. To no avail: it would eventually take a humvee with a towrope to pry the bodies free. Meanwhile, Somalis pressed ever closer, poking their weapons around doorways and firing blindly into the street...