It’s hot, and we’re a small group in a parking lot waiting for a group of strangers who are on a wonderful mission. The National EMS Bike Ride is coming thru La Crosse today and the riders will be going to visit the UW Health MedFlight memorial bench at Gundersen Health Systems.
On May 10, 2008 MedFlight lifted off from refueling at the La Crosse airport and sustained an impact with terrain while flying under visual flight rules. There were no survivors. UW Madison Hospital has a beautiful memorial and Gundersen – the receiving facility for the last transported patient flown by the crew that night – has a peaceful garden with a memorial bench.
The National EMS Memorial Bike Ride web page states “The National EMS Memorial Bike Ride, Inc. (NEMSMBR) honors Emergency Medical Services personnel by organizing and implementing long distance cycling events that memorialize and celebrate the lives of those who serve every day, those who have become sick or injured while performing their duties, and those who have died in the line of duty.”
Years ago in the early 2000’s as a rural volunteer EMT, I was fortunate enough to hear the humorous and always moving Steve Berry speak at the Wisconsin EMS Association conference. That was the first time I’d heard of the Memorial Ride, and it’s “Muddy Angels”.
Flash forward to today – June 28, 2016 – and we’re waiting for the riders taking part in the Midwest leg of this year’s ride. The lead vehicles start to arrive and we’re soon surrounded by brightly clad cyclers. We’re outside Mayo Clinic Health Systems main campus and their security approaches us to let us know there is an inbound aircraft. He tells us this because the bikes are propped up and wash from the tail rotor will be coming from the helipad is in our immediate proximity. Word is passed around and everyone nods in understanding.
Arrangements are being made with my supervisors on scene regarding the route we will take from this hospital’s parking lot to the memorial bench at Gundersen’s main campus. Once there, a small service will take place.
During these discussions, the familiar far off drone of a helicopter is heard. Soon the noise intensifies and looking overheard, my breath catches in my throat as I see the belly of the aircraft overheard. Bucky Badger is in town, and the approaching aircraft is the familiar red and white of UW Health’s MedFlight service. I feel like time slows to a crawl, and the memories come racing back.
It’s May 10, 2008 and I’m just sitting in the dispatch chair to settle in for a night shift like any other. I’ve thought of going back to school to get my paramedic degree, but I feel as if I’m too old to go back to school. I also work for and with a phenomenal group of individuals and perhaps that’s good enough.
Not long into that shift, the phone rang and the world changed forever. La Crosse EDC was calling to ask for one of our ambulances to standby in the township of Medary. Reports had come in from multiple residents in that area with some concerning reports.
Due to the fog and drizzle in the dark, the search was night-long. My partner and myself are kept busy by the usual call volume as well as hourly check-ins with the MedFlight communications specialist in Madison. We know his voice from all the times our flight services flies into Madison. There is a point in that flight where our communications center can no longer reach our aircraft by radio. We can monitor the latitude and longitude which updates every 30 seconds on our flight following program. This particular Comm Spec will call us to say he has radio contact and again to tell us when they land. We do the same for him. That night he called to say he had an overdue aircraft who was not “pinging”, or transmitting its location anymore. We were at his side via phone thru that long night. We helped as best we could, which is to say, we couldn’t do anything but feel his pain and sit helplessly by, hours away.
So many memories I have of that long foggy drizzly night. Our Post Accident Incident Plan open on the round table as we offer our services to the MedFlight Comm Spec every hour. Learning that the emergency locate on the aircraft wasn’t being picked up by searchers on the ground, that it had to be picked up from the air. Calling Volk Field, calling anyone we could think of. Same answer repeated – weather conditions are not amenable to a search aircraft assisting. Listening to the ground parties walking grids. Telling our flight team. Answering tearful phone calls from a few UW nurses as word got out, inquiring if we knew who was on the flight, any word yet? Listening to the radio traffic as ground searchers attempted to use cell phone triangulation from the MedFlight crew cell phones. Driving home blindly in the stark morning light, no news. Waking mid-morning to hear they’d found the wreckage. Meeting the MedFlight Comm Spec at the memorial service for two of the crew members, his bear hug, his face to finally put with that voice. Standing atop Monona Terrace, listening to the wife of one crew member speak, hearing her say “if you want to honor my husband, serve others as he did.” Watching the helicopter flyover tribute. Enrolling in the paramedic program one month later.
So Bucky Badger comes over the rooftop of the hospital and it’s 2016. I’m standing in a uniform with a gold paramedic patch on my right shoulder and as the dust settles and the rotors slow, I realize the lump in my throat is shared by my coworkers standing around me. The riders at first do not realize the significance of this flight service coming to La Crosse and landing in the middle of this group. MedFlight does not come to La Crosse very frequently, so this is a very amazing coincidence. I walk around my truck a bit and standing out of sight behind it, I look up. The sun is bright, the traffic going by is very busy, there are some unconcerned birds lazily spinning overhead in the blue summer sky. I smile up and I think to myself, I’m pretty certain three men are grinning somewhere.
After they had transferred their patient, our clinical manager caught up with the crew and told them why these brightly colored people with bikes were gathered in the parking lot on this hot day. MedFlight allowed the crew on that mission to accompany the memorial bike ride to the bench. During the service that followed, the flight physician spoke of his memories of the lost crew members. A list of names lost was read, including the MedFlight crew as well as our dispatch supervisor who we lost a few months after the crash. A bell tolled after every name, and the moment seemed a fitting closure to that first phone call from the night so long ago.
And I know he’ll never know, but every time I put on this uniform, I remember the brave words of a wife as the wind blew over Monona Terrace. The wife of one flight team member I only knew from a wave to our security camera as they walked across our helipad and boarded that aircraft to go refuel and fly home that night. The sound of the bagpipes has long since faded – but the names of those three crew members remain on a bench in La Crosse, on a wall in Madison, and in the hearts of so many.
Isn’t it an amazing measure of a man, the lives touched even when they’re gone?
Godspeed – all these years later MedFlight 1 - N135UW – 5/10/2008
Darren, Steve, Mark
