epilogue - uw health
TRANSCRIPT
Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Med Flight Tales
Stories of hoping, coping, inspiration, and redemption
By Jeffrey W. Gaver, DVM, MD
Emergency Flight Physician
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the two decades that I have flown, we have lost several
members of flight teams and EMS members throughout the
state. These people have made the ultimate sacrifice for their
patients as have their families. Even the mention of their names
is still painful for those of us who knew them and worked with
them. I would like to dedicate this book as a memorial to them.
To my brothers and friends, Steve, Mark, and Darren. I cherish
the time we spent together. I wish you blue skies, fair winds,
and smooth flying. You will never be forgotten.
Jeffrey W. Gaver, DVM, MD
CHAPTER ONE
COME HOME, COME HOME It was a beautiful spring Saturday. I was on the 9a to 9p shift at Med Flight
and we were busy, but not deluged with flights. I even had time to
complete physicals on three pilots.
In addition to the multiple accreditations I carried at the time, I was an
Aviation Medical Examiner (AME). In that role, I served as a representative
of the FAA (Federal Aviation Agency), and as such, it was my duty to
medically certify or recertify pilots. Third class medical certifications were
issued to private pilots who primarily flew for recreation and were good for
3 years. Second Class certifications were issued to pilots such as our Med
Flight captains who flew multiengine and high performance air craft and
required yearly renewal. First Class certifications were required for
commercial pilots who flew passenger planes. They were required to re-
certify every six months and also to have a yearly electrocardiogram.
Many of our Flight crews had members who were pilots in addition to the
Pilots in Command of the helicopters. They were usually doctors or nurses
who flew fixed wing airplanes, primarily as a hobby. Once examined, they
were issued a certificate that was required to be carried on their person
whenever they flew.
I had completed the necessary paperwork for the crew that was flying the
7p to 7a shift. Coincidentally, all three members of the crew were pilots. I
had issued a second class certificate to the pilot in command of the
helicopter, and two third class certificates to the physician and nurse that
were flying with him that evening. Since it was Saturday, I would wait until
Monday to forward the completed forms to the Great Lakes Region of the
FAA in Chicago. They would approve it and send it on to Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma which is where the Airman Certification Branch is based. I
finished my shift, said so long to the night crew, and headed home, about
an hour’s drive away.
I was awakened by a phone call at 0730 on May 10, 2008. It was Mother’s
Day. 1
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COME HOME, COME HOME
The voice on the other end of the line was the Med Flight Medical Director.
“We have an aircraft missing,” he said solemnly. I said, “For how long?” “It
disappeared off the flight following equipment shortly after 2230 and we
have not heard anything since”, he replied.
I couldn’t believe it. We were the premiere flight program! We were safety
conscious at all times. Twenty thousand flights all safely returned. There must be
some mistake. Crashes just don’t happen to programs like ours. The weather was
fine. Conditions were VFR, you could fly without instruments. The pilot was a
superb pilot. The helicopter was new and in perfect mechanical condition. The
crew was careful, always vigilant for potential problems, especially with takeoffs
and landings. We all did preflight checks with the equipment. All three
members of this crew were pilots and all three were extremely careful. The
dispatcher was one of our best.
An hour later I got another call. The wreckage had been found about three
miles from the Lacrosse airport in a farmer’s woods on a hill.
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COME HOME, COME HOME
There were no survivors. Killed in the crash were flight surgeon Darren Bean,
Flight Nurse Mark Coyne and Pilot In command, Steve Lipperer, These were the
very three pilots I had medically certified less than 12 hours ago!
These three guys were not just my colleagues. They were, in fact, not just
my friends. They were my brothers! Although most of my sadness is gone,
my heart still breaks when I think of how they died. In the wreckage there
were no identifable remains.
The offical report states that Med Flight was called for mutual aid to take a
patient to Lacrosse. They took the patient to Lacrosse, leaving her at
Gunderson Luthern Hospital, then refuled at the airport and took off. The
weather was starting to deteriorate, but it was still VFR conditions. They
took off from the airport flew over one bluff, and for some unknow reason
hit a lower bluff at full speed, apparently not realizing it was there. Bill, the
dispatcher had talked to them just before take off. He saw the monitor blip
disappear a short time later and declared an immediate emergency. All of
the system alerts went off, but there was nothing to be done. The crash
had taken place and no one had survived.
The NTSB did a thorough investigation lasting over a year and found no
mechanical malfunctions in the helicopter. Ultimately the cause of the
accident was attributed to pilot error. Most of us who knew Steve still have
not been able to accept that as the explanation.
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COME HOME, COME HOME
As a program, we were devastated. The other helicopter was immediately
grounded. In the days that followed we mourned out fallen brothers. The
first memorial service was held publically at the Monona Center. It was for
Steve and Darren. As they wheeled the two caskets in accompanied by the
bag pipers and drummers the entire Med Flight Team in their uniforms
processed in behind them, followed by EMS and Firemen in full dress
uniform. It was a huge crowd. Darren had been the EMS director and had
many friends that were fireman and paramedics. Besides the officials, Craig
Lunaas, Steve’s mentor, and our former lead pilot gave his eulogy. Darren’s
wife gave his. I think that was when we really accepted that this terrible
thing had actually happened, and that it was not just some bad dream we
would mercifully awake from at any moment. Mike, our Chief Flight
Physician, and I were sitting together. I watched my friend Mike silently
sobbing and I knew that as a band of brothers and sisters, we would never
be the same. We had somehow lost our innocence.
Mark’s service was at his church about a week later. Again the service was
packed full of people. We heard his friends and family tell stories of his
amazing life.
At the service I remembered the night that Mark and I were listening to
some Blues music on the helicopter radio and we made up a song, The Med
Flight Blues. One of the verses went, “I said to my pilot, I said to my nurse,
this chopper ain’t nothing but a high flying hearse! I got the Med Flight
Blues.” How terribly true that turned out to be! I wept at the bitter irony.
At the end of the service we were all to go outside. One of the pilots was
presented with an urn containing Mark’s remains. The pilot walked over to
the helicopter which was sitting behind the church and gently put the urn
into the back cabin. Already secured in place were the urns containing the
remains of Steve and Darren. During the service the weather had started to
cloud up. As the sun was setting, dark angry storm clouds started to close
in.
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COME HOME, COME HOME
The helicopter took off to the west and was joined by two other helicopters
one from Gunderson Hospital, and one from Flight For Life. We watched
them disappear into the approaching storm. It was one of the saddest
moments in my life. Someone took a picture. They entitled it three souls
winging their way skyward. Even today, when I look at the picture, I have
to hold back the tears.
I am not sure if any of us thought the flight program could survive through
all of this. A lot of decisions had to be made by a lot of people. Would
there be enough crew remain to continue on as a program? Was there
anything we could do differently to prevent this kind of thing from
happening again? It took about a month for things to sort out. We each
had to answer the question, “Can I fly again and be comfortable with it?”
Up to that time, we thought that if you were very careful, nothing could go
wrong. We had to come to grips with the fact that that was not true.
Several of the doctors had families with small children, and quite a few of
them, at their wives urging, decided not to continue flying. No one blamed
them. Interestingly, all of the pilots and nurses returned.
In my case, I looked back at my record. In 1981 I had gone down in the
Caribbean Ocean in a Beechcraft Bonanza. We had to make a water landing
and swim to a small island where we were rescued the next day. Between
two flight programs, in roughly twenty years of flying, I had logged nearly
5000 flights. I did have a few near misses. Once when an engine
compressor went out as we were lifting off the pad with an intubated
patient, we had to set back down immediately. We took the patient back in
to the hospital and waited for the other helicopter to come and get us.
Another time an engine overheated and we had to declare an emergency
and make an unscheduled landing at the Madison airfield with the entire
fire department chasing us down the run way. One evening we took off
and could not get back in to the pad due to the weather. We decided to
make the approach at the Madison airport (Truax Field) when we were
asked by the tower to fly toward Wisconsin Dells to rescue a lost pilot lost
in the fog.
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COME HOME, COME HOME
We found him and, he followed us to the airport and landed. He was extremely grateful. We had to refuel at yet another airport that had jet fuel and then returned to Madison, making a successful landing at Truax Field. I stopped flying night shifts shortly thereafter. I had a lot of friends who called me right after the crash to make sure I was not involved in it. Later they called and tried to convince me that I should stop tempting fate and not return to flying. My mom all but begged me to quit flying, and yet I believed strongly in our mission. I knew how many people we had saved over the years, and I just could not leave the program at a time like this. I decided to continue flying. It was a good decision. They had offered short test flights to anyone that thought that they might have a little trouble going up again, but I declined. I really was not worried about going up again. I flew another three years retiring after twenty years at Med Flight. I logged out at 5500 flights between FFL and Med Flight. I have never been sorry. The friends I made and the lives we saved were worth any risk I was taking. Why then do bad things happen to good people? I don’t think I know the answer to that question. What I do know is this. Our God is a God of mystery, but he is not a God of mistakes. There is a purpose, a good purpose, for the things that he allows to happen to us. One day we will realize that. I entitled this chapter after the refrain from a hymn written by Will Thompson in the late 1800’s, Softly, Tenderly Jesus is calling. Come home, come home, You who are weary, come home; Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling, O sinner, come home.