Because I want to share this story with as many people as possible, I’m making part of the book free through the following blog posts. The book is available in print on Amazon and as an ebook through both the Kindle and (soon) iBooks stores. Please enjoy and share!
Chapter Two is a brief bio leading up to my first job flying air medical missions with UCLA.
CHAPTER TWO – HOW IT ALL STARTED
Someone once said the plans we make for our lives rarely work out the way we anticipated, but when you look back at them, a story emerges out of it all. The twists and turns of my career, from flying international jets to parking a helicopter in a forest at three o’clock in the morning don’t easily form a story. But then again, maybe it does.
When I was a small child my parents and I toured a military air base. At one point I stood next to a big bomber - a B-29, I found out later - its landing gear tires taller than me. Reaching out to touch them, my fingers came away stained with the dirt of faraway runways. Thick, black oil dripped from its mighty engines and formed long streaks along the wings and fuselage, war paint from bombing missions on far flung targets.
That experience is always with me, as if it happened yesterday. Why it was so profound I’ll never know, but the smells and the feel of that big airplane were, in their own way, the first step in what would become my calling and my career.
I was born in North Carolina. My father was a church organist who seemed to be always searching for the right job. The ten schools that I attended from the first grade through the twelfth were a solitary journey through youth that, along with the struggle much later to pay for college, hardened me. All through grade school, ever the stranger in classes where I had just arrived or was just leaving, I kept to myself, focused on my objective: study flying, figure out when I could start it, then accumulate flight time and pilot ratings.
As a teenager, I was often alone at night when my parents were attending events of one kind or another. Spreading out my papers and books on the dining room table, I drew hundreds of pictures of airplanes, spent every waking moment reading about building planes, and dreamed of flying off into faraway skies.
Starting flying lessons at 15, I already knew the basics of aerodynamics and structures and how to read aeronautical maps and weather forecasts. Learning takeoffs and landings in an ancient Piper Cub I planned to solo on my 16th birthday, the FAA-mandated legal minimum. The Cub was a small, high-wing plane covered in yellow fabric and smelling of fuel, fumes seeping into the cabin from the tank right in front of the pilot. It had two seats—student in front, instructor in back. I would later come to realize how under-powered it was, but in those first flights it was a monster that I struggled to tame.
From the very beginning my instructors taught me to always respect the Cub’s limits, the red lines on the instruments and the warning placards pasted all over the cockpit. A big one: if we flew too slow, the Cub would stall, stop flying and fall from the sky. So, we spent lots of time learning to recognize and recover from stalls.
They were, at first, pretty scary. In level flight, you ease the throttle back to idle, then start pulling the control stick back to keep the airplane from descending. The stick gets heavier and heavier the more you pull it back, as the nose tries harder and harder to fall through the horizon. Finally, you feel the stick jammed against its rear stop. The nose is pointed way up, and then it happens. The plane shudders and the nose plunges downward. That’s the stall. To recover, you push the throttle up to max power and ease the stick forward. The airspeed starts increasing and pretty soon everything is normal again.
After the first few of them you get the hang of it. You learn that stall recovery has to be by instinct - muscle memory. After all, the times you’re flying the slowest are when you’re approaching to land, which is also when you’re at the lowest altitudes and have none to spare.
This is standard fledgling-pilot stuff. Only in our dreams can we fly unfettered, flitting from here to there. The images from movies and TV shows of daredevil pilots are nothing more than Hollywood glitz. In the real world, every turn, every change in power setting is done with great precision and constant awareness of the aircraft’s performance and its limitations.
While I always paid attention to them, in the advanced stages of learning to fly I learned how to push limits when there was a reason to do it.
I was working with a pilot friend of mine, Jim Whitfield, preparing for the FAA flight test for the Flight Instructor Rating. It was a big deal in a couple of ways, one it was validation of my status as a real pilot, and two, I could start earning money instead of just spending it. I’d done a lot of prep for the flying we needed to complete before I could take the checkride, and arrived at the airport one morning to meet Jim, ready to start on the maneuvers we had to cover.
“OK, Woody, let’s get started,” Jim said. “The most important thing you need to learn is how to do a loop in the Cub.”
I was stunned. Loops were not even remotely part of the flight instructor curriculum, and the Cub was actually prohibited from doing them.
“I know, I know, you think you should never loop the Cub,” Jim said. “But it’s what you need to learn to be a real pilot. You already know all the regular instructor stuff.”
“But Jim, the Cub can’t do loops,” I said. ”We’ll tear the wings off.”
“We’ll be fine, Woody,” Jim replied with that maniacal grin for which he was so well known, his perfect teeth bared in anticipation and his large blue eyes lit up. “You’ll see.”
Not at all happy about this, I climbed into the back seat of the Cub, Jim squeezed into the front, and we took off. Once we climbed up to altitude, Jim yelled back at me that he had the controls. And over we went, into an insane dive.
The Cub’s maximum speed limit was 80 MPH, but here we were, nose pointed down at the ground and the throttle shoved to the stops, going over 100 mph. The little plane rattled terribly and the engine howled as Jim smoothly pulled the nose up and there we were, on our backs and then through the loop.
After my initial fright of being upside down and the wings coming off, it was fun. Jim coached me through a few of them, and there I was, doing loops one after another. Over the next few days, we finished the routine instructor maneuvers and Jim signed me off. I took the check ride and not long afterward, at the age of 19, was out flying with my first student.
The loop exercise was the first time I’d ever exceeded an aircraft limitation. I think Jim meant to show me that, under the right circumstances, if there was a need, you could push past the limits, but you had to be aware of the danger and do what you could to minimize it. That experience would serve me well when, years later, I started flying air medical missions.
Jim went on to become a Captain for United Airlines. I saw him years later, looking good in his Captain’s uniform. He’d become much more reserved by then, but that grin was still there.
***
All through my teen-age years I lived for the day when I’d become a military pilot. My favorite movie growing up was Strategic Air Command. Jimmy Stewart plays an Air Force pilot who flies B-36s and B-47s during the Cold War. Corny as it is, the flying scenes, the camaraderie of the aircrews and how they pushed themselves into danger so they could complete their mission is forever the stuff of inspiration.
That should’ve been my life, but the military required 20/20 vision and I didn’t have it. At 19, when I finally had to face the facts, it was a terrible personal setback. To this day it’s still an empty hole in me that will never heal.
I was determined to go forward with flying, though, even if it would only be in civilian jobs. Instructing helped pay my way through engineering school. That was a tough experience, earning a few bucks at the airport and riding a bicycle on my commute while I scraped together tuition for the private engineering school I’d chosen. I missed a lot of meals trying to hold it together.
But I graduated, took my shiny new Aeronautical Engineering diploma to Seattle and went to work in my dream job, flight test at Boeing. Assigned to a NASA flight project doing state-of-the-art research in fly-by-wire systems - advanced technology flight controls driven by computers instead of raw pilot input - was privileged, graduate-level work. It ended after a few adventurous years and I settled into what was for me a sort of humdrum existence. While I loved engineering, having to settle into what I saw as a more mundane existence drove me to question the path forward at Boeing. A lot of engineers I worked with were happy at their desks, but it wasn’t for me, no fault of Boeing or my comrades. I wanted to fly, so it was time to move on.
Searching for the life of flying that I envisioned was tortuous. I learned early on that the flying business was very much like show business. Trying to become a successful pilot, or a famous actor, is a mix of hard work and the right breaks. I would go on to meet pilots who were talented but seemed to have never made it. They had put in the hard work but never got the break they needed to move up. The break I needed came from an unexpected corner.
Over a period of three or four years and a string of marginal flying jobs, I was running out of options. Living in Los Angeles, I was selling computers to pay the rent. I watched helicopters flying low level up and down the beach. It looked like fun. Maybe they were a way to go I hadn’t thought about.
The computer company I was working for had given me a lot of good sales training, including how to make cold calls, the one thing sales guys hate the most. “Hello, I’m your local computer expert and I’d like to talk to you about …” Then click, the person hangs up. On to the next one on the list, hoping for one good prospect out of a hundred hang-ups.
So, on a whim one afternoon, I called a helicopter manufacturer in LA and asked for the sales department. A secretary answered, “Mr. Jackson’s office.”
I launched into my planned pitch, expecting to be told there were no openings and I should call back in year or two. Instead, she put me through to the Sales Manager. I gave him my pitch, waiting for him to break in with a polite brush-off. Instead he listened, then suggested we have lunch. After almost dropping the phone I agreed.
A few months later I reported for my first day at the company, planning among other things to start helicopter training. Since I was already a rated, experienced airplane pilot the transition training consisted of some self-study, about thirty hours of flight training and a check ride with an FAA Inspector.
The first few hours in a small trainer were hard as I struggled to control the thing in a hover. My instructor, Nick, the most patient person I’ve ever met, would set us up in a stable hover over one of the practice pads out in the middle of Long Beach Airport, then turn it over to me. In seconds, we’d be lurching fifty feet one way, then twenty feet in another. Nick would reset us and off we’d go again, until a few hours into it something clicked. The mental and physical process fell into place, and I could hold the little helicopter over a spot. The rest was relatively easy and, after two intense weeks of flying all day every day I passed the checkride. My pilot license was changed to show commercial helicopter pilot and instructor ratings. Instructing at that point was definitely out of the question, but I’d demonstrated the requisite skill and that’s what counted.
Soon I was flying a shiny new demonstrator all over the US. It turned out to be inspiring work showing pilots who’d only flown airplanes that the myth about helicopters being impossible to fly was just that, another one of those pilot stories. They too could experience the thrill of hovering flight as well as racing across the countryside at treetop height, the world unfolding in an IMAX procession of breathtaking scenery.
This new life was very different than those in earlier years. As a teenager, I’d been totally focused on learning to fly and had very little social life. College, where I worked full time while attending school full time, was a monastic existence and then Boeing was an engineer’s orderly lifestyle. The new life flying helicopters was a far more relaxed, fun pace as I roamed the skies and countryside of America.
On more than one occasion a couple of us sales guys met up in the same town, parked our helicopters and enjoyed the local night life. One night, Bob, my comrade from the upper reaches of North America, and I met up in Salt Lake City, parked our helicopters on our hotel’s rooftop helipad and proceeded down one level to the bar. We were instant celebrities, having flown in with a flurry of noise and rotor wash. After a long night of celebration, we met in the restaurant for breakfast, dressed in our suits and ties, ready for the day’s business despite our haggard appearance. There were a lot of mornings like that. In hindsight, I probably would have done better with less socializing, but then, it was the ‘80s and we loved life on the edge.
After four adventurous years, the company was sold and the new owners changed things around. There was talk the test pilots would take over the demo flying, taking away one of the most important and rewarding benefits of the job. I’d made a lot of friends in the business and had offers waiting for me, so, I took a new job, the first of what would end up being a long string of them. Then a minor event took me in a new, exciting direction I could never have dreamed of.
***
I joined a helicopter sales company across the bay from San Francisco. It wasn’t long though, before the same sort of problems with disgruntled customers that I had dealt with at my previous employer began to surface. I should have expected it, after all the customers were the same, either spoiled, high net worth types or cranky helicopter operators. Life quickly became a daily grind. Then a life-changing event happened.
I had been able to re-connect with local police departments I’d worked with previously setting up helicopter units. I had always admired their dedication to duty and strong team spirit. A friend of mine, a police sergeant who supervised one such unit suggested I become a Reserve Officer with his department. I’d never thought about police work before, but why not? It would be a complete change of pace, a breath of fresh air. So I took the plunge.
Completing the weeks-long selection process and then months of class and field training, there came that lovely spring morning when I was ready to head out on my own on my first day of patrol. As I drove out of the parking lot in my patrol car headed out on day watch, a profound, deep sense of happiness and freedom flooded over me. Maybe it was an unplanned but much needed escape from the lifelong, frenetic pursuit of flying jobs. I still remember it as if it was yesterday.
It’s interesting how many pilots were cops at one time. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, not only flew for Pan American Airways but also served with the Los Angeles Police Department, the latter where he started his screen writing career. Many of my friends at various police department helicopter units have gone to work for the airlines after retiring from law enforcement. The parallel attraction, I think, in both lives, is the challenge to stay sharp at your job and all of its procedures and rules so when you face those moments of danger, you do the right thing. It’s not a challenge for everyone, but those who choose it find a deep satisfaction at being the best.
Working within a system of command and control that is your constant support, you go forth into the world to do your duty. Driving through business streets and residential areas you watch everything, looking for the signals you’ve been taught that something isn’t right. They can be as small as an older person on a sidewalk that seems to be staggering a bit. You slow down and watch, without bringing attention to yourself. If it looks like they’re in trouble, you park the car and walk toward them, in an easy stride that doesn’t alarm those around you.
“Hi, there, how’s your morning going?” is your greeting to the person, maybe touching their arm in support. You quickly assess them and decide what to do next. If they seem preoccupied but coherent, after some friendly, caring conversation, you head back to your car.
If they seem in distress, you might find a place to sit down and suggest they could use some help, all while clicking your shoulder mike asking for an ambulance, Code Two only, no sirens to upset the person or cause a ruckus. A few minutes later you’ve handed them over to kind, caring firefighter paramedics. And you head back out on patrol.
It goes like that all day, helping where needed, making traffic stops that can be a polite discussion about speeding or paying attention to the road or, after running the driver through the routine records search with dispatch they come up with a felony warrant. Then things get tense. After a quiet call for backup, you wait near your car for their arrival. Then, as your backup partner quietly steps in place, you return to the driver and ask them to step out of the car. That can go a couple of ways. Hopefully they comply and you arrest them and put them in your car.
Or they get crazy, either refusing to get out, or jumping out and getting combative, and you need to do everything right from then on to prevent people getting hurt. In the most severe outcome, your backup partner moves into place and one way or another the two of you subdue the person and take them into custody. You arrange for a tow truck to take their car and then head out to jail to book your suspect.
All of this is going on within that frame of support that’s there for you, a watch commander who’s always nearby who can be there in minutes to advise, help keep order and call for more assets if they’re needed, firefighters to assist with either their truck crews or paramedics, or specialist police teams if things get really tense.
I loved the sense of order that all this brought to the daily work, the confidence of working within a larger system. That was a whole new experience for me where, up to that point I’d always felt like I was on my own in whatever I was doing.
What I was doing mattered to society and, in our own quiet way, made life better for the citizens for whose safety we were responsible.
Proud to be wearing the badge and to be a part of the team, I quit flying and settled into my new life. I was growing in strength of character every day, becoming stronger in ways I could never have imagined. Shedding the frustrations of my previous life, I flourished in my new role and never looked back.
Little did I know that things were about to change again. Family pressures are hard on cops. My wife, Linda worried about the danger and fretted at how the job was changing me. It was hard for her to see the good in what we did as cops and how, on balance, it was worth the risk. She made her position clear: I needed to get out of police work and go back to flying.
So, here I was, either leaving police work that I had come to love, or facing a crisis that would tear my marriage apart. With deep misgivings, I announced my decision to my comrades, and turned in my badge and gun. They were used to it. I wasn’t the first cop to put his family before the job and I wouldn’t be the last.
***
I had kept in contact with friends in aviation, so finding a job wasn’t hard. Returning to my former life, though, I brought with me a new set of values shaped by my service in police work. Whatever I did would have to be more than just another flying job. I wanted to serve and protect, even if I wasn’t in uniform.
A close friend and mentor offered me the chance to fly medevac missions at the UCLA Medical Center. It sounded perfect. Saving the lives of trauma victims was as noble a cause as taking criminals off the street.
The flight program had challenges. The pilots were employees of the company who supplied the helicopter. With their management three states away it was a fast and loose operation. In my initial interviews for the job with the Medical Center I suggested we bring the flying operation in-house, creating our own operational rules and safety structure. Management liked the plan and I was hired to execute it.
Initially our new pilot cadre and I trained in the Agusta 109A helicopter the vendor was supplying while we decided on a replacement aircraft. The 109A was a sleek, beautiful aircraft but didn’t have the power to carry all the medical equipment we needed along with the med crew and adequate fuel for our missions.
Our helipad was located six stories above the campus on the roof of the Medical Center. Every takeoff from there was a guessing game: would we fly, or would we sink helplessly into the courtyard? Standard procedure was to pick the helicopter up to a hover to verify we had
adequate power for the flight. In the 109 we were using nearly all there was just to hover. A helicopter can hover with less power close to the surface so, as we left the roof behind and were suddenly six stories high we had to add power to keep flying. Since the 109 left the rooftop maxed out on power the only option was to trade height for airspeed, diving to gain flying speed, hoping it flew before it crunched into the courtyard’s flower beds.
On one of my first duty days we got a call about a flaming SUV wreck. The badly injured driver, the EMTs at the scene told us, weighed about 150 lbs. With the fuel we needed for the flight and our two nurses and their medical equipment, I had calculated a 150-lb. patient would put us at the maximum allowable weight to take off and climb out of the mountainous terrain surrounding the accident.
As we touched down at the accident scene I looked out at the carnage. The SUV had toppled over on its back, its wheels still spinning idly. Fenders and doors ripped away in the crash were strewn around the highway. The victim laid perilously close to the car, his arms and legs splayed out, the ambulance crew squatting next to him assessing the damage and pumping meds through the IV line they’d stuck into his arm.
I stared at him, his belly a large mound underneath the sheet they’d thrown over him, his girth the reason the paramedics hadn’t moved him. His cheeks puffed out from the breathing tube they’d stuck down his throat that was forcing air into him.
The guy had to weigh 300 lbs. A chill ran through me. How were we going to haul him out of here? The 109 didn’t have the power to lift his bulk off the highway.
As I sat in the helicopter, engines idling while the med crew was out doing their work, a light breeze blew in from the right side. The departure path in that direction was clear of wires and trees. If I could somehow coax the helicopter into a hover, then ease the nose around into the wind we could take advantage of it.
New to the whole process of flying trauma patients, it never occurred to me to consider refusing to take this guy. He was being rolled toward the helicopter, we needed to save his life, and it was up to me to figure out how to fly us out of there.
I felt the helicopter settle on its landing gear as they loaded the patient. Damn, he was big. Once the doors were closed and the med crew was settled in, I started pulling in collective. The collective is near the pilot’s left hand and looks like the hand brake in a sports car. Raising it increases the amount of lift the rotor system will deliver.
The pilot’s right hand is on a control stick that looks like it came out of a fighter jet, with multiple buttons and switches. It’s called the cyclic, and you use it to roll the aircraft left and right and nose it up and down. The pedals control the tail rotor to point the nose left or right. The controls are hydraulically boosted so they require only the lightest touch to maneuver the helicopter.
Raising the collective brought us up into a hover. The power gauge needles were touching the red limit lines. With delicate pressure on the pedals I eased the nose around into the wind. The breeze pushed more air through the rotor system, generating small puffs of extra lift. The 109 bobbed up and down, seeming eager to fly. I pulled in what little extra power the breeze gave us and nosed forward.
The first few seconds were heart-stoppers, the 109 lurching along, then drifting downward a few inches toward the bushes. The wheels slashed through the tops of the underbrush. We were going to crash! But I held my breath and caressed the 109 along until suddenly it burbled its way up to climb speed and we flew off into the night.
Later, after we arrived back at the hospital I thought about what a scrape this had been, literally, as we crunched through the bushes, and the chill of that moment when I thought we we’d lost it.
What was I thinking? Bottom line, I’d taken off too heavy for us to get out of there and only pulled it off because of a stray puff of wind. I’d had to use “some of that pilot stuff” to get through situations before, but never because I had, on purpose, done anything as off limits as what I did that night. Why had I thought we could take that big patient out of there when we were way outside the performance data in the Fight Manual? I hadn’t thought about it all, actually.
I’d just discovered the rule of life for a medevac pilot: if I had refused to take off from that highway that young man would have bled out and died.
It took a while to process this strange thing we did saving patients. No other type of flying that I knew of in the civilian world put a life or death decision on every flight. If that was the case, though, why weren’t these flights better organized? Did ambulance crews not understand the importance of patient weight to a helicopter crew? I asked around and it appeared they received no special training about working with helicopters, except that we needed a fairly large space to land.
It was dangerous but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. We worked with hundreds of first responders. I’d seen the huge binders of data they referred to for treatment protocols and for managing an accident or a crime scene. It was clear, though, that they didn’t have a binder on helicopter operations.
As scary as those missions were, we didn’t know it then but we would face another far worse challenge - cost cutting pressures driven by health care systems focused more on making money than saving lives. Those cuts would create even more danger and, over the years would drive the medevac story in directions we could never imagine.
***
We replaced the A109 with a Bell 222, a more capable medevac ship. Its large cabin housed a complete medical suite to administer Advanced Life Support (ALS) level care, a full set of avionics for night and weather flying, and it delivered the speed and performance to save lives over a large operational radius around UCLA.
The 222 was featured in a television series called Airwolf that was popular in the 80's. The helicopter used in the series was painted jet black and, in the show, often used its “whisper mode” to sneak up on bad guys. We didn’t have a whisper mode, of course, but many viewers from that era still remember that sleek, black machine and its daring flights that saved people from harm.
Replacing the A109 with the 222 didn’t mean we’d no longer be pushing the aircraft’s limits to the max and beyond. Whatever the limits, there would always be a mission that pushed us beyond them. One of my first flights in the 222 proved that point once again.
As the call came in we got the background on our patient. John Farnham, a prominent lawyer in a city about 50 miles east of our hospital, was an avid golfer and a heavy drinker. The latter had damaged his liver beyond repair. Now on the recipient list awaiting a suitable organ, he was in an Intensive Care Unit bed at another hospital, his health failing. When the call came in to the liver team that an organ was available they requested we transport him.
It was an unusual request. A recipient living this close - an hour’s freeway drive - would normally be transported by ambulance. But Mr. Farnham’s frail condition ruled that out. We could provide a quick flight and the high level of care that would keep him alive. After a conference between the liver team, our med crew and the ICU that was treating him, we launched the flight.
A half hour later we landed on the rooftop helipad where Mr. Farnham awaited us. I throttled down to idle as the med crew jumped out, ran to the gurney that was being pushed toward the helicopter and began taking over his care from the hospital staff. I watched them rushing around the helipad, their sense of urgency driving the mission to a combat-level tempo.
As Mr. Farnham was being loaded into the 222 his gurney passed close by me. In his heavily drugged condition he was staring into infinity, his yellow skin pallor chilling evidence of his terrible condition. The hospital crew slammed the cabin door and patted the window across from me, waving as they stepped back. As I began spooling up the 222’s engines I heard the clatter of the nurses donning their helmets. Amy was one of the medical crew for the flight.
“We’re ready here, Woody. Go fast, please, our guy is in a bad way,” she said breathlessly as she moved around stuffing the exotic drugs she would need in the fabric pockets in the cabin wall. She was amped up getting organized for what was going to be a short but intense transport. As she set up a med bag in the forward part of the cabin, near me, her deep brown eyes met mine for a moment. She had that steady stare that nurses get when they’re working on a seriously ill patient.
What had she meant with her admonishment to go fast? In a few words, Amy had defined our mission: do whatever it takes to make the flight quicker, because this patient’s life was in imminent jeopardy.
For trauma patients time is the enemy. As seconds tick by, they lose more blood, or their wounds fester and broken bones grind against each other, tearing apart more flesh. Speed is the vital, life-saving asset we bring them. Speed shortens their suffering.
Could I cut minutes off this flight? Absolutely. Did it add to the danger? It was up to me to fly as fast as possible and manage whatever risks to us that came with pushing the helicopter’s limits. There were ways, one of them, cut down on the flight time by straightening out the route between the scene and the hospital. That meant planning a path to cut corners around hills and mountains and avoid airports where we’d have to fly around their traffic patterns.
I acknowledged Amy’s comment and two minutes later we were doing 160 mph, redline speed, back to our hospital. The med crew and the liver team talked constantly over the radio as we sped home, the team suggesting protocols and meds that would keep Mr. Farnham stable until he was in the operating room.
An airport that was home to several flying schools loomed ahead of us, right in our line of flight. Climbing over their airspace or flying around it would cost us vital extra minutes, so I called the tower.
“Cameron Tower, Lifeguard helicopter one papa delta, we’re five miles east and need direct clearance through your airspace. We are transporting a critical patient.”
“Roger, one papa delta, there are two aircraft in the pattern. Suggest a left turn to a heading of 210 degrees to avoid them.”
“Negative, sir, we need to fly straight through midfield. Every minute for this patient is crucial.”
There was a pause, probably while the tower operator talked to his supervisor. I kept us pointed at our home heliport 20 miles away, right through the center of the airport ahead.
“One papa delta, continue present heading. Cherokee five delta whiskey and Cessna nine echo foxtrot give way to the helicopter crossing east to west. They’re on an emergency flight. Report the helicopter in sight.”
Both aircraft acknowledged as the closest one veered off to get out of our way.
As we flew out the other side of their airspace I thanked the tower and the pilots of the two small planes. “One papa delta is clear to the west. Many thanks, you guys, for helping us out.”
“Roger, one papa delta, good luck,” the tower operator said.
I could hear the nurses using the chest paddles on Mr. Farnham, his body spasms from the high voltage pulsing through the cabin and jarring the whole airframe, even though the helicopter weighed over 8,000 lbs. In between them the nurses breathlessly reported to the liver team what was happening.
“University base, Med One,” Amy said over the radio, “our patient’s stats are worse every minute. Any other suggestions on how we can support him?”
“Just get him to us,” the person at the hospital replied. That was a lot of help. I felt for the med crew.
“What’s our ETA, Woody?” Amy gasped.
“Five minutes, Amy,” I replied, then increased the power into the yellow arc to squeeze out a few more precious bits of time. We were allowed to fly for five minutes with the power in the yellow, so, as hard as we were pushing, we were, in fact, using options that were within the flight envelope.
I kept the speed up until our heliport came in sight. We swooped in across the roof as I pulled the nose up, brought us to a hover, then settled onto the surface. Attendants ran out to the aircraft as Amy and Jane, the other nurse, pushed the doors open. Mr. Farnham was whisked to the elevator and down to the OR, the med crew right beside him.
This was high pressure stuff, and, as the tempo intensified on this flight it reminded me of those nights in a patrol car when, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, we dodged around cars to reach one of our own who’d called for backup. In the middle of all the noise and the tension in the voices on the radio we had to be focused and calm, thinking about what we were going to do when we arrived and readying ourselves for the worst. Will I need the shotgun or will my issue weapon be enough? Should I plan on pulling up close to my partner’s car, or further back, then approaching on foot? The mental preparation to do whatever was needed was the same as it was pushing the 222 hard while staying calm in the midst of the med crew’s noisy, heightened state.
Many of our pilots were former military, used to the high pressure of combat situations. Those of us with law enforcement backgrounds as well as former military pilots were an asset to our med crews. In a way, we protected them and, at the same time, gave them the best support in the face of chaos. Looking at our pilots who had no such experience you could see where they weren’t as well prepared for the life and death struggles that we were thrown into. Could they, when the med crew amped up their game, stay calm, think through all the options and choose the best for the moment?
I heard later that day that Mr. Farnham survived the transplant operation, always the first hurdle in that business, and had a guarded prognosis. With the running tension between nurses and pilots, we rarely got any credit for good outcomes, but I knew I’d shaved off vital minutes charging through that airport’s airspace and then flying at power settings that were past the normal limit. It paid off for Mr. Farnham.
Copyright © 2021 Woody McClendon. All rights reserved.
Although this chapter is being shared free of charge on flyinglowproductions.com, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to Books@FlyingLowProductions.com