Help From Above
Despite a recent crash, the medical transport helicopter team at the U. of C. Hospitals is among the nation's leaders in safety and has rescued hundreds. Still, some critics say the skies are becoming too crowded.
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Photo: University of Chicago HospitalsAeromedical Network (UCAN) |
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Another thing that has changed: the perception of pilots as cowboys in the sky, a notion that Hollywood has helped perpetuate. The image of Robert Duvall blaring "Ride of the Valkyries" from his helicopter in Apocalypse Now seems ridiculously outdated in this era of by-the-book safety. Simply put, today's pilots do not pull stunts. "These are professionals who do not take risks," says Blumen. "They want to get back to their families safely like the rest of us."
But the emergency helicopter field still attracts an offbeat crew of adrenaline junkies: ex-firefighters and military men, pediatric intensive-care-unit veterans, emergency room nurses, former emergency medical technicians. One of UCAN's communications specialists has a part-time job removing corneas from the recently dead; a former employee worked for Aftermath, a company that tidies up after crime scenes. Blumen's crew are undoubtedly smart and fearless, but they're average-looking: beer bellies, droopy mustaches, bum knees. One nurse, called "Ned Flanders" by colleagues because he looks like the character from The Simpsons, is colorblind, and hence incapable of seeing blood. Fred Ligman, UCAN's lead pilot, is among the most gifted helicopter pilots in Chicago-he was the one at the stick during a key sequence of The Blues Brothers, where a helicopter flies among the city's skyscrapers-but he's just like the rest of us on the ground, where he drives an '84 Dodge Caravan and still mows his parents' lawn.
Ligman and the rest of the UCAN crew spend hours in the office waiting for action. "There's a lot of downtime," says Blumen. "It's like a fire department; the only thing missing is the exercise equipment." And as in a fire department, the storytelling is legendary. The crew's macabre tales involve things like infants born with their intestines on the outside, or alcoholics who get sliced in half on train tracks. Jane Kirkley, a UCAN flight nurse for 22 years, talks about the time she transported a child molester who sliced off his own penis. "They re-attached it, but it didn't take," she says. "He couldn't leave it alone." Kirkley is the first to admit how crass it all sounds, turning other people's misfortunes into comedy, but gallows humor is one way to cope with the realities of the job. In the helicopter, she is as compassionate as anyone.
After the helicopter accident in July, the storytelling stopped. In fact, the whole program shut down for nine days. During that time, UCAN took a look at its safety practices. It also held a briefing on the accident, inviting crew members, emergency residents, public-relations folks, people from the legal, safety, and security departments-anyone who was eligible to fly with UCAN-to discuss what had happened. Ligman, drawing on a chalkboard, showed that the accident most likely was caused by the loss of tail rotor functionality. Essentially the aircraft started to topple because the rotor wasn't doing what it was supposed to do.
When the program was up and running again, some of the crew members hesitated to fly in another replacement helicopter, though all eventually agreed. Blumen refuses to assign blame for the accident. "I can't say it was the fault of the aircraft," he says; he'll wait for the official NTSB report to draw a conclusion. It could be a while. It can take more than a year for the Washington, D.C.–based agency to release its detailed accident reports. Meanwhile, UCAN is waiting for its original helicopter to come back from its maintenance in Texas. When it returns, likely this month, the team will notice some technological improvements: a ground proximity warning device that links a database with the craft's GPS location; a traffic avoidance system that reads transponder codes of other aircraft; a satellite telephone; and an automated satellite tracking system. "We have never stood pat," says Blumen. "We're always looking at new initiatives when it comes to safety."
Are the additions a guarantee that UCAN won't have another accident, with worse consequences? Obviously not. Pat Petersen of the Air Medical Physician Association recalls a program in Utah that went more than 20 years without any accidents-then had two fatal crashes within months of each other. "I don't think that accidents happen because people are careless," she says. "Accidents are accidents."
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