About 2 weeks ago a MedFlight helicopter from a local hospital here, crashed on its way back from delivering a patient to another city. The three people on board -- the pilot, a doctor, and a nurse -- were all killed in the accident. It was the first time in 20 some years of MedFlight services here that there has been an accident like that.
Well, accidents are accidents and statistically bound to happen, but in today's paper there was this article. Apparently the National Safety Transportation Board recommends that all pilots of medical flights use night vision goggles, but guess what? They are unable to get them from the manufacturers because the Pentagon has first dibs on them. They're needed much more in Iraq than they are here. Does the travesty never end?
12 comments:
No no no- oh my God.
Oh no...
I am speechless and enraged at once.
That is terrible. Just terrible. I mean they make rules but dont follow them. Yikes...
That's awful.
I worked in Alaska and we often flew in helicopters to the job site. There're new rules and better technology now, but we did not fly at night, full stop. Even today, when I hear a helicopter at night, I always assume it's some big emergency.
Also there is a warning system that alerts the pilot when the helicopter is too close to the ground or a mountain or a hill. The helicopter don't have those either and for the same reason. The cost is about $100,000 per.
And of course, the helicopters are leased from a private company - not owned by the University of Wisconsin Hospital.
What I can't comprehend is why after five years of this war, there are still US helicopters that are not equipped, not to mention those that are used by hospitals.
(I did read an Esquire article about Harrison Ford - he flies a helicopter for his own amusement that is equipped with the altimeter warning system.)
Well, glad Harrison Ford will be safe anyway. (She said ironically.)
Sick, sick. It fits with what Naomi Klein writes in "The Shock Doctrine." I've only read two chapters in that many days and am newly horrified.
I do want to add to the other thing Jess hinted at: it is a private company that owns and maintains the helicopters, and I suspect that private companies are frequently about cutting corners to maximize profits. That was my first thought when the crash occurred. This second, equally insidious revelation came later.
Don't forget to mention that they only recently started using a private company. For many years they owned and operated the helicopters themselves and never had an accident. Then to "save money" (probably they thought they owed it to their stockholders) they outsourced the whole operation. How many times do we need to see that happen before people wise up?
Another delicate thing that doesn't get mentioned is why was the flight taking a woman from what was once the premier medical facility in the United States to one in LaCrosse? After dark? What does Gunderson Lutheran have that the massive (does the hospital now encircle Shorewood Hills or have they not yet completed the loop?) UW Hospital does not?
Tragically, the woman they transported that night died a few hours after they left her at Gunderson.
(I meant to say ...facility in the Midwest. Didn't want to get into hyperbole.)
I had not heard about this. What a horrible thing to have happen. Damn this senseless war.
When it encircles Shorewood Hills, they can finally be the gated community that some residents have always longed to be.
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