Nashville’s ‘Arctic 8’ Tell The Story Of Their Helicopter Rescue Near The North Pole

Polar bear sightings. Icy waters. And a nerve-wracking helicopter rescue. These details  animated the story shared Monday by a group of Nashville civic leaders who had to be rescued at sea this summer near the North Pole.

The self-described “Arctic 8” went public with their accounts at a meeting of the Rotary Club.

The July 21 rescue made news in Norway first. Then it caught the attention of The Tennessean and raised eyebrows here because the group included former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean with a local who’s who. Those rescued were: accountant Kevin Crumbo, healthcare executive John Deane, investor Frank Garrison, commercial broker Bert Mathews, OZ Arts co-founder Tim Ozgener, St. Thomas Health leader Geoff Smallwood, and historian Breck Walker.

Dean says he was on the trip because he trusted Garrison — an experienced adventurer who proposed the idea.

“Frank told me it’d be safe, so …” Dean said to laughs Monday. “What attracted me to it was … how fascinating a place this is.”

The group did see glaciers, polar bears, arctic wolves, whales and seals in a land of endless daylight.

But then conditions took a turn.

The travelers — joined on stage by Norwegian crewmember Kjell Erik and rescuer Mari Martinsen — shared storytelling duties about the rescue and showed videos.

An on-board fire on the 70-foot sailboat forced the group onto two life rafts before a pair of helicopters swooped in.

Bert Mathews, a developer, was the only man to be pulled out of the 32-degree water, which sprayed wildly just 60 feet from the helicopter.

“All sorts of stuff spraying in your face,” Mathews said. “It happened so fast, you never really had any idea what was going on.”

Yet healthcare executive John Deane — who was pulled up first — had vivid recall of the perils.

“[Martinsen] attached me to a sling and she wrapped her legs around my core and her arms around my shoulders and we went up together about 80 to 100 feet as a unit,” Deane said. “And I felt pretty secure about that until we started spinning at a rapid rate. And then just as I was beginning to think this will pass, I saw the skids of the helicopter headed right for the top of my head.”

As Deane waited for the next rescue, “those were the longest 2 minutes,” he said.

They were all pulled to safety in about 11 minutes, leaving the group relieved, amazed, and in the spotlight again — just in a way they could not have predicted.

Garrison told the Rotary that the next trip he’s planning is into a remote area of the Amazon.