ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (PNN) - October 2, 2024 - Local authorities have threatened to arrest a former law enforcement officer turned volunteer pilot, Jordan Seidhom, as he undertakes life-saving rescue missions for stranded families in the wake of devastating floods in the North Carolina mountains.

On Saturday morning, Seidhom, a seasoned pilot with nearly 1,400 flight hours and a Class 1 certified law enforcement background, learned about a family stranded in Banner Elk, North Carolina, via social media.

With their supplies dwindling and desperate pleas for help flooding in, he took matters into his own hands along with his high school junior son, Landon. Loading his helicopter with bottled water and food, he set off to save lives.

“I thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help,” Seidhom told Queen City News Chief Investigator Jody Barr.

His heroic actions led to the successful rescue of multiple stranded individuals, including a pair of women lacking food and water and even a couple trapped on a precarious mountainside.

However, the situation took a dramatic turn when Seidhom returned to the Lake Lure area for a second day of rescue missions.

“I spoke with my son, which is my copilot. I said, ‘Hey do you want to go back out and try to help today?’ His response was, ‘There’s so many messages. I don’t think we can not go help,’” Seidhom said.

They got back into the black Robinson 44 helicopter and headed west once again through the mountain gap in Lake Lure.

“As we were flying by, my son actually spotted a lady waving for help. I asked him, I said, ‘Hey, is she waving for help or is she just waving?’ He said, ‘No, I think she’s waving for help.’”

Seidhom and his son conducted a “low and high recon” for power lines and trees that might have been in the way, then gingerly lowered his chopper down onto what was left of the couple’s concrete driveway. The flood waters had washed away most of the ground beneath it.

Seidhom’s video shows him leaving the helicopter to greet the couple, and then returning with a game plan a few seconds later. The audio in the recording captured the exchange between the father and 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, okay?” the elder Seidhom told his son.

Seidhom said his main concern was putting too much weight on the driveway and it crumbling from beneath. He left his son and the woman’s husband to make the three-minute flight to a group of first responders positioned along the river below the mountain.

After he and his son loaded the woman into the chopper, Seidhom told his son to stay put and he’d be right back to get the husband, “I originally left my son, copilot, on the side of the mountain. It was kind of unstable, so I didn’t want to put more weight on the helicopter to lift back off. So, I left my son with the other victim. And I was just going to take one person down at the time,” Seidhom said.

After landing to coordinate with local first responders, he was confronted by a fire official who abruptly halted his operations.

The official threatened Seidhom with arrest if he attempted to continue his rescue efforts, claiming that Seidhom was “interfering” with their operations.

“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.

“I told him my background experience, law enforcement, firefighting, and pilot and he immediately started helping with coordination. 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. 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.”

“He originally asked me who I was. I gave him the same information, who I was with, my background experience, law enforcement, and firefighting. His response was, if you have that kind of experience, you should know that you should be coordinating with us. 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 added.

“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.”

“I’m going back and getting my copilot. ‘If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot, I don’t know what to tell you.’”

At that point, two law enforcement officers were called over, and the threat of arrest loomed large.

“At that point, I had to make a decision. I have a victim, I have my son, and I politely asked the officers, told him the situation again, explained everything, told them who I’d been coordinating with, and I said, ‘Hey if I go back up and get this victim and bring him down to this landing spot that other emergency personnel have designated, am I going to be arrested? The officers’ response was, ‘Man, I really don’t know what to do in this situation.’ I said, ‘So you can’t tell me if I’m going to get arrested or not?’ He said, ‘Man, I’m not sure what to do.’”

Seidhom said he asked the official for a specific reason why he was being ordered to stop his rescue efforts. The fire official’s response, according to Seidhom, was simply, “You’re interfering with my operation.”