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.

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.

With Lauri’s serious injuries requiring more extensive care than the hospital in Canon City could provide, she had been moved to Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs. There she underwent surgery to have an external fixator bar installed across her hips—“a bar screwed into her pelvis to keep the eight breaks in place,” as Suzanne explained. Lauri was ready for rehabilitation but not in Colorado.

Suzanne said her sister’s doctor thought she “would be better able to rehab in her own city closer to her daughters.”(The girls had gone home earlier at different times following treatment of their injuries.) “Lauri’s doctor felt that being close to home would help her emotionally and allow her to concentrate on recovery if she were able to see her family.”

Kem had been at his wife’s side during her hospitalization in Colorado providing the emotional support that was his all-consuming focus. When he faced the complicated business of finding an air ambulance since travel by car or commercial airline were not options, Suzanne stepped in. A successful businesswoman living in Boca Raton, Florida, she offered to handle the search for air transport. Air Compassion America was the answer.

Five days after Suzanne’s call—on July 3—medical workers placed Lauri by stretcher into a Learjet 35 air ambulance staffed with a pilot, copilot, nurse and paramedic. Clara had shopped around to find the flight, with the price and service better than that offered by competitors. “After talking with the air ambulance company and having the ability to discuss the whole flight arrangement with Clara at Air Compassion, we felt very comfortable in our choice,” Suzanne said. Lauri and her family paid $18,600 for the trip, saving them 23 percent off the original quote they had received before working with ACAM.

Cutting Costs

There are several ways the nonprofit organization is able to save families money—on average, 38 percent over any bid they may have received prior to contacting ACAM.

• Vendors know that ACAM is getting bids from multiple vendors. Competition can only help.
• ACAM presents the bid details to the family or sponsor, helps the family/sponsor evaluate the options, then works from the bid the client accepts.
• Mission coordination involves taking advantage of vendors repositioning aircraft and of vendors returning to their home area.
• Coordinators take advantage of situations where vendors can fly different patients on different legs of a trip.
• Coordinators advise clients of transport date options which can influence price.

Flexibility Is Key

Blaire Hermann has called on Air Compassion America for the past two years, ever since she’s been the case manager for vent patients at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She found ACAM on the Internet. “I always use them. They’re so flexible and obtain better rates.” Flexibility is important, she said, because her patients “are all complex. Their needs change on a daily basis. We’ve sent patients to Chicago, Florida, Jamaica.” One patient, a 23-year-old woman from Jordan, became ill while visiting a friend in New Jersey. “She was dying and wanted to go home to Jordan where her father was. We were able to get a good rate using ACA. The hospital paid for the flight.”

In Good Hands

In Lauri’s case, the family raised the money, and air traffic controllers nationwide raised morale as the Learjet carried her across the country. “At every major city, they sent a message to the pilot for Kem and Lauri: ‘We’ve got your back.’ ‘Don’t worry.’ ‘God speed,’” Suzanne said. The three-and-a-half hour flight went smoothly, though Lauri felt nervous and emotional. Before the trip, she had “put lipstick on,” with the thought, “I’m going home. I was so excited.” During a brief period of turbulence in flight, she said to God, “You’ve gotten me this far—you’re not going to let me go.

“It was amazing, the care I got. I was given water to drink, pain meds, and was kept stable and comfortable. Everyone was very nice. I knew I was in good hands.”

With her family gathered to greet her, Lauri was taken by ground ambulance to the new inpatient rehab unit of Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach, Florida, where she underwent physical and occupational therapy to regain strength as well as learn to take care of herself in a wheelchair.

After surgery to remove the fixator bar, she was able to stand again, then gradually—and slowly—walk. “Baby steps,” she said. Today Lauri goes regularly to the gym, saying, “The more active I am, the better I feel. Some days I hurt, but the pain has subsided.” Alex is now a freshman in college and “has recovered nicely,” her mom said. “Sarah still has a few issues with her back from the compression fractures, but she is healing well. She was able to resume playing sports. We are all fortunate that we are recovering and look forward to feeling 100 percent.”

Dewey, a Navy veteran, was in Key West closing out his affairs during the process of moving from Florida to Norfolk when he developed intense shoulder pain. He sought help at a local hospital and was admitted, then suddenly developed a fever and a blood infection. “By the time we got there,” said another daughter, Diane, “he was wearing a diaper, was incoherent and on a ventilator. Something had gone wrong.”

Air Compassion worked for weeks to find an economical air ambulance and coordinate the flight in light of an endless round of delays. Finally, on July 8, a Cessna 340 air ambulance landed at the airport and Dewey was safely transported by bed board and stretcher to the waiting ground ambulance and his loving children and grandchildren.

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.

ACAM was able to arrange and fund a flight on Sept. 9, with Frank and Marion traveling on a Lear 25 jet. The plane was staffed with a nurse and a respiration therapist. Frank was admitted to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, Calif., and Marion moved in with her daughter.