Waiting expectantly on the tarmac, the two women from Air Compassion America watched for the Cessna 340 air ambulance to land with its fragile cargo, a 66-year-old stroke victim and Navy veteran named John.

Robin Cron coordinates the missions for Air Compassion America. She and Suzanne Rhodes, the director of public affairs, were there to meet John and his daughter, Sherry Huhn. The pair was coming from St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, New York to Virginia Beach on November 4, where John would be transported by ground ambulance to River Point Rehab.

Jill Adam is John’s niece, a social worker in Tennessee who has been actively involved in her uncle’s medical arrangements. She explained that Hampton Roads is home to him and that he had decided to retire in Virginia Beach after his last military assignment in Norfolk. Sherry also lives in Virginia Beach. She had flown up to Albany so as to escort her dad home.

Jill said that this past September, John and his wife, Tessie, were in New York for a reunion of his Navy buddies when he had a stroke right in the hotel lobby. He was taken to St. Peter’s and stabilized, then later was transferred to a rehab unit. “He was scheduled to fly home on October 24,” Jill said, “but on the Friday before, he had another stroke.” She said Air Compassion America made it possible for him “to come home. He couldn’t have otherwise.” That is because ACAM saved the family thousands of dollars. “I called four other air ambulance companies,” Jill explained. “The prices were from $13,000 to “$26,000. We’re paying $5,630, and that’s for bed-to-bed. Robin couldn’t have provided any higher standard of care.”

At last the plane landed, and Robin and Suzanne watched as medical workers carefully lifted the stretcher and patient out of the cabin and into the waiting ambulance. Other than John needing oxygen, the flight was uneventful—except for the moment of landing, when John received a kiss on his cheek from his relieved and grateful daughter. That’s what Air Compassion America is all about.

“Oh my gosh, he’s in our lane!”

Even as the words left Kem’s mouth, the huge Ford F350 crested the hill and collided at full speed (nearly 80 miles per hour) into the rented minivan. The date was June 21, 2007; the place, a stretch of highway 50 in Colorado between Canon City and Royal Gorge.

Not What They Expected

That anyone could be extricated alive from the crumpled mass of metal that had been a new Chevy Uplander is impossible to imagine, but Kem’s wife Lauri survived. “I was in a little cocoon. Everything was smashed around me,” she recalled in an interview months later. She was rushed by ambulance to St. Thomas More hospital in Canon City where doctors saw massive injuries, including a lacerated liver and bladder and shattered pelvis. Kem suffered only minor cuts and bruises. The couple’s teenaged daughters, Alex and Sarah, managed to get out of the car, both badly hurt. Alex had a ruptured spleen and broken ribs. Sarah had compression fractures in her lower spine. (The driver of the truck was unharmed.) The family was on vacation from their home in Florida, traveling to Royal Gorge for whitewater rafting and horseback riding. Like any other vacationers, they expected a good time, not a catastrophe.

Finding a Way Home

“Air Compassion America. This is Clara.”

The call to the organization’s lead mission coordinator came from Florida on June 28, 2008. The person on the line was Lauri’s sister, Suzanne, who was looking for a way to bring Lauri home. She’d learned of Air Compassion America from a friend and colleague of Kem’s, a fellow air traffic controller named Steve. Read the rest of this entry »

At Piedmont regional airport, the waiting room was full, the ground ambulance was on the tarmac, and all eyes were on the runway. Dewey was coming home! The 84-year-old father and grandfather from Key West, Fla., was due to land at 5:30 p.m. Air Compassion America arranged the flight to Norfolk where the partially paralyzed man would be staying with his daughter Pat until a bed at Norfolk General hospital in Virginia could be found. Read the rest of this entry »

For 89-year-old Clara V., a post-stroke victim with no use of her legs, the nightmare of Katrina became unbearable. She was in a New Orleans nursing home when a nearby levee ruptured. Clara was evacuated to the rehab wing of River West Medical Center in Plaquemine, La., but because she had been without her psychiatric medications, she suffered from dementia and began hallucinating. Only one family member, a niece named Cindy W., from Marietta, Ga., was able to take her in, but no funds were available for an air ambulance flight.

Once the elderly woman was stabilized, Air Compassion America (ACAM) provided a charitable flight on Sept. 12 in a Citation jet to take her from Baton Rouge to Atlanta. Flight time was about an hour and a half; the cost, paid in full by ACAM, was $5,516.Cindy says the flight was fabulous and that she is telling everyone about Air Compassion. She spends six hours a day with her Aunt Clara, who is cared for in a nursing home and called “Sassy” by the other residents! Clara turned 90 on Dec. 12.