Courtesy Photo | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Alaska Air National Guardsmen of 210th Rescue Squadron, Tech. Sgt. Anthony Guedea (left) and Lt. Col. Michael Jordan, meet with Iditarod musher Aliy Zirkle June 28, 2021, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Guedea and Jordan were part of the team that rescued Zirkle March 9 at the Iditarod Rohn checkpoint after she suffered a head injury. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by David Bedard/Released) - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, AK, UNITED STATES 
Musher thanks Arctic Guardians for Iditarod rescue
When veteran Iditarod sled dog musher Aliy Zirkle woke up March 8, she didn’t find herself in a comfy bed. Instead, she awoke to the site of her dog team tangled in a tree springing from the frozen subarctic tundra.
Her right arm was tethered to the sled by a surfboard leash, and it was apparent the dogs – laser-focused on their task of rapidly covering the nearly 1,000 miles of the race distance – had been dragging her for quite some time.
When she tried to get up, she quickly realized she was in trouble, and she needed to get to the race’s Rohn Roadhouse checkpoint cabin about five miles down the trail.
“I remember thinking I wasn’t normal, like there was something going on,” she recalled. “And then I tried to get up and untangle [the dogs] from this tree, but I couldn’t use my whole right side. So I was obviously thinking I broke something, or I wasn’t really sure. One thing I did know was I knew I had to get to that cabin.”
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