In July 1999, in keeping with my migrant helicopter worker tradition, I moved to Reno Nevada. I left a Fox TV news helicopter job in Houston Texas for an upgrade to my first multi-engine helicopter opportunity. For an extra $250 a month, I moved on to bigger and better things. The job would have me flying the MD-900 NOTAR helicopter, and the AS-355 Twin Star, in support of the REMSA Careflight program based at a couple of local Reno hospitals. Initially I flew the twin Star, later the 900.
I liked my job flying helicopters in Houston. I loved the machine, a B2 A-Star. I loved the young CFI's that worked there as part of a flight school, training international students. To this day, those CFI's remain some of my best friends in the whole world. I even enjoyed the incredible naivete of the Japanese students attending the flight school. Almost nightly, the now deceased owner of the company, a Scotsman from Aberdeen named Robin, treated us to a few rounds of drinks at Molly's Irish pub. Robin always had a huge tumbler of gin poured for him by the attentive staff. Usually, we could drink as much as we liked until he finished his second tumbler. Then he would close out his tab and we were on our own.
Unfortunately there was one person there who I did not like. For all the positives, there ALWAYS has to be an equal and opposite negative. Like Newtons 5th Law or something. Shawn, the D-bag morning news pilot, was the worst example of piloting, and I dare say, humanity, I have ever seen. After a lengthy discussion in which I confronted him about some issues we were having, I considered punching him in the throat. Actually, I should have followed through with the blow, but when you see a grown man run into the corner and cower like a bunny rabbit, you realize that you would be somehow diminished if you kicked his ass. Kind of like abusing a mentally challenged person, or a fixed wing pilot. Yeah you'd kick their butt, but you'd feel dirty afterwards. My decision was made. I will not work in this environment, so I moved on.
Upon arriving in Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World," I promptly began my training in the Twin Star. After some hair-raising night training using the Night Sun external light, in some of the darkest terrain I have ever seen, I was signed off for EMS operations.
Early on, during my fist day of duty, the pager goes off. We have a scene flight to a highway accident location on I-80, east of Reno. During the short flight to the location, the crew advises me there are a lot of accidents at this particular spot. For a very long distance, way east of Reno, maybe 100 miles, I-80 runs due west, straight as an arrow. Then, not far from town, the highway makes a significant curve to the south. Apparently, people fall asleep after the long, long straightaway and run off the curve, causing a rollover accident.
I land in the center of the eastbound lane, facing west due to the winds, my tail pointed at the scene. Numerous law enforcement, EMS, and fire units are on scene with many people gathered around the '80's model car, laying upside down in the ditch. My crew advises me it will be a prolonged extraction of the sole female occupant. I decide to shut down the aircraft and walk over to assist my crew. I no sooner exit the helicopter, walk past the tail, when I am met by two fire fighters. They ask me if I have a cooler. A what? A cooler? No. why? How bout ice, they ask? No. What for? The second fire fighter hands me an object wrapped in a garbage bag. For some reason my natural tendency to reach out to what he is handing me is suppressed. I ask, "What is that?" "It's an arm," the fire fighter says. I stand there for what seemed like a minute. I have no idea what my face looked like, but I am sure it registered shock, and awe. I held up a finger, took a knee, and fished a pair of rubber gloves out of my lower flight suit pocket, a trick I learned while in Harlingen Texas, flying EMS. (Always carry gloves!! and a TB mask!!)
I accept the arm. It feels stiff and somewhat cool, not very heavy. I stand there like a moron holding an arm, at arms length. Now my brain is processing, and processing.......hmmm, what do I do with this? After mentally querying my training program, I realize I have no data on where to store severed limbs, so I elect to put it in the aft cargo bay, because it has a really good lock on on it. I reasoned it would be in the way in the cabin, and the other two baggage compartments sometimes pop open in flight. Losing an arm out the cargo door would probably be inappropriate.
The crew, and the attending first responder entourage, arrive and load the patient into the helicopter. During the short flight to Washoe Medical Center, my thoughts drifted back to that arm back in the cargo compartment:
Is it going to spoil?
Will the door pop open allowing the arm to fly out?
If it flies out, will it hit the tail rotor?
I hope it's ok???
I then allow myself to look over the patient. My crew advises me her arm was pinned between the roof of the car and the highway, as it rolled over and slid hundreds of feet into the ditch. My brain goes into MS Windows "safe mode" as I try to imagine what that must've felt like. I look at her face. She's looking at me. She says hello. Oh, how nice. She's awake, with a bandaged stub where her arm used to be, and she has enough courtesy to say hello. She's not complaining, nor is she begging for morphine, she is just quietly enduring her pain, like some Buddhist monk from Tibet.
Even the jaded medical crew was amazed at her demeanor. They remarked how quiet she was and how tough she must have been. Later, after they returned from the ER, I asked about her chances of having the arm reattached. They said oh, the surgeon said it was hamburger, and threw it away.
Side note: Later, during the next 7 years in EMS, I would believe women could endure pain better than men. That is until I picked up an old cowboy, who had is thumb torn off while roping horses. He had a horse roped from his saddle and his thumb got caught against the pommel as the horse reared, pulling his thumb from the socke,t and most of the way off his hand. After hours waiting for his helicopter flight, I then flew this cowboy for over an hour to the Missoula hospital, he never complained once.
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| Careflight N901CF Helicopter at Washoe Medical Center Helipad |
I liked my job flying helicopters in Houston. I loved the machine, a B2 A-Star. I loved the young CFI's that worked there as part of a flight school, training international students. To this day, those CFI's remain some of my best friends in the whole world. I even enjoyed the incredible naivete of the Japanese students attending the flight school. Almost nightly, the now deceased owner of the company, a Scotsman from Aberdeen named Robin, treated us to a few rounds of drinks at Molly's Irish pub. Robin always had a huge tumbler of gin poured for him by the attentive staff. Usually, we could drink as much as we liked until he finished his second tumbler. Then he would close out his tab and we were on our own.
 |
| Don't be such a pussy |
Unfortunately there was one person there who I did not like. For all the positives, there ALWAYS has to be an equal and opposite negative. Like Newtons 5th Law or something. Shawn, the D-bag morning news pilot, was the worst example of piloting, and I dare say, humanity, I have ever seen. After a lengthy discussion in which I confronted him about some issues we were having, I considered punching him in the throat. Actually, I should have followed through with the blow, but when you see a grown man run into the corner and cower like a bunny rabbit, you realize that you would be somehow diminished if you kicked his ass. Kind of like abusing a mentally challenged person, or a fixed wing pilot. Yeah you'd kick their butt, but you'd feel dirty afterwards. My decision was made. I will not work in this environment, so I moved on.
Upon arriving in Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World," I promptly began my training in the Twin Star. After some hair-raising night training using the Night Sun external light, in some of the darkest terrain I have ever seen, I was signed off for EMS operations.
Early on, during my fist day of duty, the pager goes off. We have a scene flight to a highway accident location on I-80, east of Reno. During the short flight to the location, the crew advises me there are a lot of accidents at this particular spot. For a very long distance, way east of Reno, maybe 100 miles, I-80 runs due west, straight as an arrow. Then, not far from town, the highway makes a significant curve to the south. Apparently, people fall asleep after the long, long straightaway and run off the curve, causing a rollover accident.
 |
| a random helicopter scene landing |
I land in the center of the eastbound lane, facing west due to the winds, my tail pointed at the scene. Numerous law enforcement, EMS, and fire units are on scene with many people gathered around the '80's model car, laying upside down in the ditch. My crew advises me it will be a prolonged extraction of the sole female occupant. I decide to shut down the aircraft and walk over to assist my crew. I no sooner exit the helicopter, walk past the tail, when I am met by two fire fighters. They ask me if I have a cooler. A what? A cooler? No. why? How bout ice, they ask? No. What for? The second fire fighter hands me an object wrapped in a garbage bag. For some reason my natural tendency to reach out to what he is handing me is suppressed. I ask, "What is that?" "It's an arm," the fire fighter says. I stand there for what seemed like a minute. I have no idea what my face looked like, but I am sure it registered shock, and awe. I held up a finger, took a knee, and fished a pair of rubber gloves out of my lower flight suit pocket, a trick I learned while in Harlingen Texas, flying EMS. (Always carry gloves!! and a TB mask!!)
I accept the arm. It feels stiff and somewhat cool, not very heavy. I stand there like a moron holding an arm, at arms length. Now my brain is processing, and processing.......hmmm, what do I do with this? After mentally querying my training program, I realize I have no data on where to store severed limbs, so I elect to put it in the aft cargo bay, because it has a really good lock on on it. I reasoned it would be in the way in the cabin, and the other two baggage compartments sometimes pop open in flight. Losing an arm out the cargo door would probably be inappropriate.
The crew, and the attending first responder entourage, arrive and load the patient into the helicopter. During the short flight to Washoe Medical Center, my thoughts drifted back to that arm back in the cargo compartment:
Is it going to spoil?
Will the door pop open allowing the arm to fly out?
If it flies out, will it hit the tail rotor?
I hope it's ok???
I then allow myself to look over the patient. My crew advises me her arm was pinned between the roof of the car and the highway, as it rolled over and slid hundreds of feet into the ditch. My brain goes into MS Windows "safe mode" as I try to imagine what that must've felt like. I look at her face. She's looking at me. She says hello. Oh, how nice. She's awake, with a bandaged stub where her arm used to be, and she has enough courtesy to say hello. She's not complaining, nor is she begging for morphine, she is just quietly enduring her pain, like some Buddhist monk from Tibet.
Even the jaded medical crew was amazed at her demeanor. They remarked how quiet she was and how tough she must have been. Later, after they returned from the ER, I asked about her chances of having the arm reattached. They said oh, the surgeon said it was hamburger, and threw it away.
Side note: Later, during the next 7 years in EMS, I would believe women could endure pain better than men. That is until I picked up an old cowboy, who had is thumb torn off while roping horses. He had a horse roped from his saddle and his thumb got caught against the pommel as the horse reared, pulling his thumb from the socke,t and most of the way off his hand. After hours waiting for his helicopter flight, I then flew this cowboy for over an hour to the Missoula hospital, he never complained once.
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