Dashboard Femur (Warning--Halloween Edition)

Upon my voluntary departure from the Army in July, 1997 I sought the challenges in civilian aviation I thought awaited me. Challenge being the key word. Naturally, I assumed my membership in the elite Nightstalkers guaranteed me a seat in any civilian helicopter in the world. I was wrong. The big problem was making a military resume translate to civilian qualifications which can be understood by a civil aircraft operator. Who understands skill sets that allow you to fly to a target with only a map, stopwatch and compass, arriving over your objective within 30 seconds of your planned time on target, while in formation, under NVG's at night?? Who understands phased fast-rope approaches to an urban target and can apply them to TV news helicopter ops? LOL....it was maddening. I had 1,998 hours at the time.

Radio Shack TRS-80 Computer like we used in my 7th Grade computer programming class

My first problem was even locating civilian flying jobs. I had no contacts, references, or websites help me. In 1997 the World Wide Web was useful, but somewhat slow and cludgy, and usually paired up with a company like AOL. You spent minutes with your telephone line plugged into the back of your computer, just waiting for your computer to connect to the internet. Eventually, I found a handful of helicopter companies and I was able to fax and mail them resumes. The responses ranged from mild interest to none whatsoever. I was willing to move anywhere for an actual job.

The second problem was pay scales. As a CW3 army aviator, I was earning, with all benefits included, about $50,000 a year. A Grand Canyon tour operator offered me about $30,000. A couple of companies in Texas were batting around numbers approaching $40,000. Wait. What? I thought all the big money was to be made in the civil sector, not the military. The negative implications of leaving the Army were just beginning to dawn on me. Later, I would eventually admit leaving the Army was a big mistake.

A random off-shore drilling rig (Google image)

Since Texas seemed to have a lot of helicopter operators, I bought a plane ticket and flew to Houston. My first stop was Houston Helicopters, and operator serving the off-shore oil and gas industry. After meeting with the chief pilot, a Viet Nam veteran and decent guy, we toured the hangar. I saw they were flying S-76's and various Bell products, but of great concern to me was every bird I saw was either sitting on blocks or completely disassembled. He recognized my skills would be of use them in the Gulf of Mexico and presented my resume to the owner. Even with the chief pilot as my advocate, the owner was not interested in me. (Note: I later discovered no operator in the gulf had a worse safety record or a worse reputation in general. I had just dodged a bullet) Sometimes things don't work out the way you want but they do work out the way they were supposed to. A theme that would repeat itself in my career, over and over.

Valley Air Care A-Star (Valley Aircare website photo)

Next stop, Tex-Air Helicopters out of Hobby Airport. yet another off-shore operator flying something I had never seen before, Eurocopter products. (A-Stars initially had a bad reputation off-shore because in order to allow import of these French designed helicopters, the government demanded they be outfitted with American made engines. Sadly, those Lycoming engines in particular were poorly designed, and many fatal engine failures resulted. Once replaced with the European Turbomecca engines, they again became extremely reliable) Outside the hangar, various A-Stars and Twin Stars were scattered around the ramp, all flyable and all being used daily. The chief pilot, a former active duty AH-64 pilot and current National Guard member, completely understood my skill set and interviewed me for an emergency medical service (EMS) position they had in Harlingen, Texas. After the interview we took a familiarization flight in an A Star. Besides the fact the rotor spins the opposite direction of what I was used to, and despite its highly touchy hydraulics, and despite the fact they call it "Le Squirrel" for a reason, and despite the fact I put it into ground resonance at least twice, the flight was a success. HAHAHAHA! Amazing.

So I packed up the house and moved to the Rio Grande valley.....commonly called, "The Valley." I found a house in McAllen, about 60 minutes from where I would be based. Citrus groves and terrible Mexican drivers dotted the landscape. The EMS program was based out of an ambulance garage, about a mile from the local hospital. To this day, I have never worked at an EMS program with such a large percentage of trauma flights. Gunshot wounds streaming blood down the side of the helicopter in flight, heavy machinery accidents, stabbing and assault victims, and you guessed it, car accidents.. Dozens and dozens of them.

Two of my all-time, top-five memorable car accident scene flights happened while working here. On this particular night, around 1am, we were awakened and paged out for a flight towards South Padre Island. In the air from a dead sleep, within 10 minutes, were we rocketing towards an accident scene, about 15 minutes flying time away. As soon as I reached 500' above ground level (AGL), I had established contact with first responders. The landing zone would be on the highway, directly in front of the scene. (I had become wary of first responders in the Valley after one night being cleared to land at an LZ, only to discover high tension power lines directly overhead, while on short final. A last minute evasive maneuver prevented a catastrophe)

A night landing (Google image)

I landed successfully, always a good thing at night, and kept the aircraft running for the on-loading of our patient. Bad news. Once again a drunk driver had killed an innocent person. The single mom, driving a minivan, was killed instantly in the head on collision. The Hispanic drunk driver, operating a large older model Chevrolet, had survived the collisio,n but was unconscious. (Almost always, the drunk driver survives...why? Because you can't kill stupid)

(Demotivational poster)

In an A-Star, the patient is loaded right next to the pilot. The copilot controls and seat are removed and sometimes, maybe, a short plexi-glas puke shield is installed between you and the patient. The pilot is in NO WAY insulated from all the bodily fluids, smells and visuals associated with trauma helicopter ops. As the patient is loaded, I am not paying much attention to him. At this point my attention is focused on the numerous people gathered around, assisting in the loading process. It's my job to make sure no one raises anything over their head, i.e. and IV bag or some other object, and to make sure they don't damage the aircraft or themselves.

Once we are off the scene and cruising to the hospital, I take a moment to look over the patient. Unconscious still, I recognize the now familiar scent of alcohol and human trauma.(Yes, Trauma has a distinct smell all its own. I would describe as a smell like the taste of blood in your mouth, combined with the smell of not quite fresh meat) Whoa! This is new. Initially I see that he looks pretty good; the typical dirt and blood smears on his face with a mixture of automobile glass, juxtaposed against the clean, fresh, warm blankets swaddling him. Unfortunately though, his left knee is gone and where his kneecap should be, the end of his femur bone, the part that should be connected to his knee, is projecting out a good 5 inches. What really caught my eye was the bits and pieces of dashboard and glas,s stuck all over the end of the bone. I spent more then a few seconds staring at this wound. Continuing my assessment, I also see his left humorous bone is broken at the midpoint, projecting 3 inches through the middle of his bicep.

A femur and knee joint x-ray (Google image)

People who are drunk and kill innocent people are not popular with EMS professionals. Pain medicine is sometimes withheld, citing the fact the have an unknown amount of alcohol in their system. Also, kindness and mercy are often also missing. Personally, I don't agree with that attitude, but I have seen people treat killers differently than other patients. Needless to say, this guy was not getting any special treatment tonight. I assisted the crew in bringing him into the ER. As a pilot, I have nothing to do once inside but stand by and hug the wall, waiting for my crew. I noticed this guy was still unconscious, but not for long. The ER staff decided to catheterize him by inserting a large bore tube up his manhood. This woke him up. Standing against the wall I was fascinated. The pain of the catheter caused him to cry out, raising his good arm and leg off the bed. On his left side, with both his arm and leg being non-functional, I saw his femur and humorous bones rise up at a 45 degree angle and begin squiggling in the air, in concert with his good arm and leg. To this day, I have never seen anything like that.