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

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Come Home, Come Home p 1

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

2

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.

5

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.