Writer Carrie Latet asks, “Is everything as urgent as your stress would imply?” 

For Angel Flight pilots and flight coordinators arranging a transplant mission, the answer is, Yes^10.

But despite the high stakes, these players execute their jobs with calm efficiency.

This past Wednesday, just as she was getting ready to leave work, Charlee Vees’ phone rang. A woman’s voice at the other end of the line said, “We just got the call from Pittsburgh that an organ is available.”

It was the mother of a 25-year-old man who is a registered Angel Flight patient, meaning all the preliminary paperwork was in place.

“Take a deep breath and pack your bags,” Charlee told her.

This was the new flight coordinator’s first transplant mission. “I was excited and relieved that the call came through before I left work.” That’s because she had backup from the program director, she explained. She opened her protocol book–what she calls her “big book”–that contains step-by-step instructions as well as the name of Angel Flight pilots who’ve signed up for transplant missions in their regions.

Kevin Rankin of Beavercreek, Ohio, was first. She called him. He said yes. It was his maiden transplant mission, too. But then he mentioned thunderstorms.

“We were both nervous,” Charlee said.

“Based on the pattern I’m seeing, I think we can get this done,” he said. Angel Flight pilots, like any right-minded private pilot, decline any mission where weather poses a threat.

After calling the patient’s mother once more to let her know the pilot would be in touch, Charlee said Kevin “took it from there.”

He met the family at the Middleton, Ohio, airport and flew them safely in his Piper Cherokee to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, airport, in time for the young man to be admitted to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for transplant surgery.

Charlee hasn’t been able to learn the results yet, but when she does, we’ll post it on Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic’s Facebook site. She said she was “just thrilled” when Kevin called her later that evening to say that “everything went great.”

“I was especially glad the pilot got to go back home that night and didn’t have to stay over in Pittsburgh.”

Today Charlee showed us a note Kevin faxed as part of his post-mission report: “My first Lifeguard. (LIFEGUARD is used in the call sign when a pilot is transporting a transplant patient.)  What a rush! Thanks to Charlee in mission control. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.”

Despite the drama and urgency of this medical flight, those two stayed cool. “Someone was watching out for us all,” Charlee said, pointing upward.

Ohio pilot Charlie Poll is one of over 500 Angel Flight pilots in the Mid-Atlantic region serving patients like this young man.

You don’t have to be a pilot to help secure passage of an important piece of legislation that ensures our volunteers have liability protection as they provide life-giving flights for patients.   Would you be willing to make a few telephone calls to Congressional members of key committees?

The letter below, sent to Angel Flight pilots for their use, explains this bill and its importance.  This is the eighth year  advocates have labored to steer it through the gauntlets of Congress. 

After you read the letter, you will see the names, addresses and phone/fax numbers of the Congressmen serving on the relevant committees. When you call, please say you would appreciate the member’s support of the liability protection legislation and that you want it to be included in the FAA reauthorization bill so our volunteer pilots can continue to help needy patients and wounded warriors. Or, if you prefer, draft a letter with the appeal and fax it to the members.

Your efforts are both essential and appreciated! Here’s the letter that went out to pilots today:

Dear Chairmen Mica and Petri and Ranking Members Rahall and Costello:

We are a group of volunteer pilots who fly for the public benefit, providing free air transportation to individuals in need of specialized medical care. We also fly disaster response missions and transport blood and other products during emergencies. There are nearly 8,000 volunteer pilots working with more than 25 charitable organizations that provide air transportation to medical facilities for financially disadvantaged patients throughout the United States.  We fly our own aircraft, purchase insurance, and fly patients at our own expense.  In 2008 alone, volunteer pilot organizations flew 24,000 charitable patient flights.

Unfortunately, volunteer pilot organizations have been experiencing difficulty attracting volunteers, like us, out of fear that they could be held financially liable in the event of an accident. Many volunteer pilots currently fly knowing that an accident could result in a lawsuit being brought against them, making them individually responsible for civil damages above the liability limit on their insurance. We find this to be very regrettable, so we welcomed the news that Senator James Inhofe and Congressman Scott Rigell had offered successful amendments in their respective FAA bills to provide reasonable liability protection for those of us who provide this service.

However, we recently learned that these amendments were potentially going to be left out of the conference committee’s report. Regardless of the reasons for doing so, we believe that the will of both the House of Representatives and the Senate was made clear—volunteer pilots who fly for the public benefit should be given reasonable liability protection.

We feel that, as a society, we should create an environment where charitable contributions are welcomed, not discouraged. That is why we supported the Volunteer Pilot Liability Protection Act, and why we feel it should be included in the final version of the FAA Reauthorization Bill.

By eliminating this unnecessary liability risk, we can hopefully attract more pilots to this worthy cause, and in turn, help save lives. We can think of no higher endeavor.

Sincerely…

Here are the committee members:

Vanessa, a very special patient from Tangier Island, Virginia, traveled regularly on Angel Flights for dialysis treatment on the mainland until her death in 2006.

This week I am mourning the death of a dear friend who fought brain cancer for a year and four months. Two weeks ago he took to bed, grew weak and died, leaving his wife—one of my best friends—and two grown children. He was a university professor and author of many scholarly works, deeply loved and admired by his students and colleagues. 

He had the best possible medical care, including treatment at Duke University’s renowned Brain Cancer Center. 

He was a runner, physically strong. He was a man of faith. 

His loss diminishes me, as the poet/priest John Donne wrote. “For I am involved in humanity…No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent.” 

His loss brings to mind the many patients of Mercy Medical Airlift whom I came to know and care about who died of their illnesses: Cindy (ovarian cancer), Trish (brain cancer), Victoria (brain cancer), Dylan (esophageal atresia), Vanessa (kidney failure), Kathy (rare cancer) and many others over many years.   

In our work, we do all we can to uplift those who are weighed down with serious medical conditions and financial hardships. It is always a blessing to hear words like these: “The peace of mind created by your organization is priceless to me”; “I cannot tell you how much your help has meant to my husband and myself. I have survived for three years, which is probably a record, but I will continue to fight as long as I can”; and “This program is just a lifesaver. I can’t even put it into words how much it has helped us.” 

Patients may lose their battles–even children, even strong men like my friend–but love and kindness are still the unlikely roots in the sidewalk of our existence that break death wide open. “Death, thou shalt die!” (John Donne).

Tim speaks to an appreciative audience at the dedication of the Freedom Walk, named in his honor and commemorating Hawthorne's fallen warriors .

“I couldn’t believe how the town got together when the kid got hurt.” 

That’s what Ray Holloway of Shingle Springs, California, said when we were standing by the horseshoe pit the evening of my arrival in Hawthorne, Nevada. The town, located in the west central high desert, is known as “America’s Patriotic Home.” 

Hawthorne’s hero, U.S. Army Spc. Tim Hall, was in line to match his skill against other seasoned horseshoe pitchers.  Ray has been coming to Hawthorne for Armed Forces Day and related events since 1991, and I was there on May 19 with my husband, Wayne, a photographer, to cover the story for Air Compassion for Veterans. Our partner, American Airlines, provided airline tickets for us and for Tim and his father. The fact that Tim would be throwing horseshoes from his wheelchair didn’t faze him in the least. The fact that both legs and his hip had been amputated hasn’t kept him from embracing life. 

Last June, Tim, now 21, was standing in line at the PX in Kabul, Afghanistan, when a mortar blast blew him back 20 feet. He nearly bled to death. His mother, Tammy Hamrey, said it took “over 300 units of blood just to keep him alive.” He was resuscitated several times in Afghanistan, flown to Germany, and eventually to Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he woke up from heavy sedation to learn his legs had been amputated.  He looked at his mother and said, “I’m sorry.”   

“Why are you sorry?” she said. 

“Look at me,” he said. 

“Would you rather be dead or alive?” 

“Alive.” 

“Then don’t ever say you’re sorry again.” 

Since that decisive moment, Tim has been unstoppable. In December he traveled on an air ambulance flight arranged by Air Compassion for Veterans  to be home in time for Christmas (see my Dec. 22, 2010 blog and links to news stories) and a huge Hawthorne welcome.

Following his return, he graduated to outpatient status at Walter Reed and was recently outfitted with a set of short prosthetic legs. As he learns to use these, he will receive taller prosthetics and eventually be able to walk—“with a limp,” he added when we talked in his Hawthorne home that had been remodeled to make it easy for him to get about in his wheelchair. 

He bought himself a custom-built Dune buggy with hand controls that he drives around town and in the hills and mountainous terrain with his friends.

His rig can also serve as a rescue vehicle, if need be.

 When Wayne and I took a drive to nearby Walker Lake, we ended up getting stuck, not realizing the surface we drove on near the water was actually sand. Appearances can be deceiving! We called Tim’s dad for help, who in turn commissioned his son to the rescue. Tim was ready to head out in his four-wheeler, but Wayne managed to get the car on solid ground and drive out and back to town. 

Appearances can be deceiving. Who would have thought a 21-year-old enlisted soldier who lost both legs and nearly his life would be known for his smile and upbeat attitude, a soldier Sen. Harry Reid said “inspired him” and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval called “my hero”?  (Correction: a soldier who gave his legs for his country, in the words of a veteran who improved my perspective in a Facebook posting.) 

I asked Tim: “If you had it to do over again, knowing what was going to happen, would you still have enlisted in the army?” 

He said he would, and that it would be a great honor to do so.

Tim has been offered a job at the Pentagon and one by the District of Columbia chief of police. He says he wants to come back to Hawthorne “I like it here. It’s not far from the big city. It’s quiet. I grew up here.” He’s also thinking of going to the University of Nevada-Reno to become a counselor and returning to his hometown to work with high school students. 

The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset wrote, ““Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are.” Tim’s landscape is far more than the big, blue Western sky and the rugged mountains surrounding the town. It is a landscape of loving community and family, of neighbors who held candlelight vigils for Tim at his lowest hour, raised money for him through a number of fundraisers, and who festooned the town with American flags and signs saying, “Welcome Home” and “Our Hero, Spc.Tim Hall.”

His best friend, Cory Hofer, applauds those, like Tim, who join the military. “It doesn’t matter what they do or what branch of service they’re in. They have chosen to serve our country. We should serve them.”

View a slide show of Armed Forces Day events in Hawthorne (May 20-21), including opening ceremonies with an address by Gov. Sandoval and during which Tim hung a wreath on the Traveling Vietnam Wall; a festive Armed Forces Day parade for which Tim served as grand marshal; and the dedication of the Freedom Walk.  http://tinyurl.com/3uvwndz

Today’s blog is a thoughtful note from parents who took a trip with their son that saved his life.  DIRA is an abbreviation for an autoinflammatory disease, Deficiency of the Interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist.

When you have a healthy child, the future is unpredictable and there are stressors associated with it, but when you have a child with an illness,  the future is even more unpredictable and scary.  You have no idea what the future holds for your child.

At times, it is very difficult to try and cope mentally, financially and physically, but it is thanks to organizations like YOU that offers the opportunity to alleviate one of the many stressors parents face in these situations.  By having this trip provided to us, we are able to focus our attentions to other matters concerning our son.  We are able to get our son to the most top-notch medical facility to try and understand his illness to help not only our son, but future DIRA patients. 

Our son was the first diagnosed in the world with this condition, which is scary considering we have no precedent to go by as we are creating the precedent for future patients.   We know that there were people that had this condition before our son was diagnosed, but unfortunately they were deemed a medical mystery or they were misdiagnosed, and they would end up passing away before they were provided with the care/treatment that they most so deserved.  It is thanks to the Janeway Children’s Hospital (Newfoundland, Canada) and the National Institute of Health that our son is here with us today.  

Again, thank you so much.

Steve Craven took this photo of devastation while surveying damage in Hackleburg, Alabama.

“What I saw was probably as bad or worse than Katrina. You have to see it to believe it.”

Angel Flight pilot and board chairman Steve Craven talked with me yesterday about tornado-ravaged northwest Alabama. He’d just returned from a tour of three small towns that were more or less flattened by the historic storms that raged across seven states on April 27.

And he sent me his photographs—300 in all—of the wreckage. Smashed cars. Matchstick heaps. Walls without roofs. A child’s teddy bear lying face down.

As a volunteer with Mercy Medical Airlift’s civil aviation disaster response program, Steve is on call to provide air transportation for key personnel needed on the ground in emergencies such as last week’s tornado outbreak. He flew 10 missions during Hurricane Katrina, bringing relief workers to the stricken areas and transporting evacuees in his Piper Saratoga.

He had received a request to fly Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster Services (MDS), to Alabama in order to assess the damage and determine the most urgent needs in the three communities they visited: Pratt City, Hackleburg, and Phil Campbell. “They’d sent four work crews down right away,” Steve said. “They’ve been cutting up trees to get them off houses.”

In Pratt City, Steve explained that showing his Angel Flight ID gave him passage through police lines. “The National Guard was everywhere. We were able to talk to a homeowner trying to retrieve one of his cars. That one had only windshield damage. The other car was severely damaged. He invited me into his house—some of the walls were standing. There was no roof. He showed me the closet in the basement where he and his wife had hidden.”

Next, he went to Hackleburg, a town where 18 of its 1500 residents died. “The only structure left standing is the water tower,” Steve said. The town’s major employer, Wrangler Jeans Distribution Center—a structure of 300,000 square feet and four stories high— was reduced to rubble. One employee died.

Phil Campbell, a tiny town with a population of under 1000 residents, was hard-hit, too. I’ve read reports that 8 to 27 people died. Suddenly, I remembered my friend Corrie, one of our Mercy Medical Airlift patients/passengers from Alabama (See her picture in my blog of February 21; her story is featured in our newsletter.)

Corrie’s father, Sammy Taylor, is the pastor of the 90-year-old Mountain View Baptist Church in Phil Campbell. He and his wife took refuge in the church’s storm cellar six minutes before the monster tornado struck. When they emerged, they found the church in ruins with only the foundation left of a large section of the building and half the roof missing from the sanctuary. On Sunday, May 1, he held a service in the church parking lot. He told a reporter, “We’re going to love on each other and pray for each other. The building is gone, but the church is still here.”

May they and survivors everywhere find strength to live and rebuild.

(You can watch Pastor Taylor’ deliver his inspiring sermon at http://tinyurl.com/3ha825d)

Doctoral student Angela Harrison practices the art of social media with flair.

[I asked our social media intern to blog about her experience at Mercy Medical Airlift, and she responded with several valuable insights.]

My name is Angela, and I’m a second year PhD student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. My major is English, with emphasis in professional writing and new media.
 
I have had the honor of being a social media intern at Mercy Medical Airlift for the past month and a half. During this time I’ve worked on implementing a social media strategy for the organization, trying to spread the word about the wonderful service this organization provides, and sharing the incredible stories of those the organization has helped and continues to help by providing charitable, medical transportation.
 
I have learned that it’s a long jump from theory to practice. Many of the readings I have done about social media have been academic based, so they have been studies or observations about the way people use it, but not rooted in everyday use or directed towards specific audiences. The reality of using social media, especially for a nonprofit organization, is an eye-opener. Social media is one of the most powerful modern tools to use for making connections, building relationships, and spreading information. Learning to tap into that power is close to an art form that I am constantly refining. I’ve dug into articles, blog posts, books, and any source I can get my hands on to learn more. I’ve experimented with different projects and ideas, and I am seeing firsthand what people respond to and what they do not. I learn a little more every single day, and all of it is beneficial.
 
I’m so grateful to Mercy Medical Airlift for giving me the opportunity to work with them. I have experienced first hand how wonderful this organization is, and I am humbled to work with so many people who are dedicated to helping others. I only hope I’m giving back in some way and helping effectively spread the word about the caring staff members and volunteers who lift burdens every day.

The gift of wings is the gift of life.

Last week we posted a question on Facebook as follows: Have you or anyone you know ever taken an Angel Flight? If so, please tell us about it. 

A couple of people “liked” the post, but no one responded with particulars—that is, not until yesterday when I got an answer in the flesh from an unexpected source. 

We were having brunch at the home of a couple from church who host this lovely feast every Easter for neighbors and friends. I sat at the table with a woman introduced to me as Gale. When she asked me where I worked and I told her Angel Flight, her face lit up. It happened that her late husband had taken numerous Angel Flights for treatment of a rare form of cancer at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. She explained that he wasn’t able to fly on commercial airlines due to his weakened medical condition, and that they appreciated having their burden lightened by flights that perfectly resolved physical and financial challenges. In fact, before he passed away, her husband requested that memorial donations be sent to Angel Flight. Looking back through my computer files, I discovered that many generous gifts were sent in his name to benefit other patients and families.  

 The circle was complete: the need for patient travel is met by caring volunteer pilots who ease the painful plight of those afflicted by serious illness. These pilots can continue serving through Angel Flight because the appreciative family names Angel Flight as the recipient of memorial gifts. 

Have you or anyone you know ever taken an Angel Flight? If so, please tell us about it.