Virginia Department of Emergency Management Calls on General Aviation for Help

Volunteer pilots certified with HSEATS—Homeland Security Emergency Air Transportation System—stand ready to assist with relief and recovery efforts in Tangier, Virginia and on the Eastern Shore. HSEATS is a program of Mercy Medical Airlift. Both the three-mile long, Chesapeake Bay island town of 600 residents, and localities along Virginia’s eastern shore experienced heavy flooding and devastation from Hurricane Sandy. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) has put HSEATS pilots on notice to ferry relief workers into these areas.

The pilots use their own private aircraft to fly relief workers, blood supplies and other critical items into regions devastated by natural or man-made disasters. Mercy Medical Airlift is also known for the service it provides to patients in need of charitable transport to distant, specialized medical treatment.

On October 31, HSEATS provided a reconnaissance flight to photograph storm damage to Saxis, Virginia, located on the Bay side of upper Accomack County. Volunteer pilot Steve Craven reported that “several structures were damaged by wind or storm surge. There was a fair amount of flooding. The main road in and out of Saxis had been under water.” He also flew over Crisfield, Maryland, and noted “quite a bit of flooding. The airport runway (W41) was underwater.”

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, HSEATS provided over 2,600 flights into and out of the stricken Gulf region, second only in service to the United States military. Other missions were undertaken in Alabama in 2011 and Kentucky in March of this year when tornadoes ravaged portions of those states.

By Candice Gindle, Intern (Virginia Wesleyan College)

For over half of his life, eight-year-old Justin has battled the pernicious disease called neuroblastoma. Prior to his diagnosis, then three-year-old Justin was complaining of leg and stomach pains, as well as running a fever. The doctors thought he had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, but on June 11, 2007, the boy was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, which had already spread to his bone marrow. Neuroblastoma is the most common abdominal tumor seen in children, which develops from the tissues that form the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system controls body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure, digestion, and levels of certain hormones.

Justin first started receiving treatment at St. Joseph’s in Tampa, Florida. He stayed there throughout the summer of 2007, but was soon transferred to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he continues to receive treatment. Once a month, Justin and at least one of his parents must make the trip to New York for treatment from their home in Tampa. The round trip is over 1,000 miles long and would take nearly 20 hours to travel by car. The cost alone for this trip, by car or plane, would be much too expensive for Justin’s parents to afford on their own. This does not include the time it would take out of their work schedules and Justin’s school schedule to make the commute to his doctor’s appointments.

When Justin’s parents, Robyn and John, found out about Mercy Medical Airlift, a huge weight was lifted from their shoulders. With the help of Mercy Medical sending them vouchers from Southwest Airlines, Justin’s parents were now able to make the trip to and from New York once a month for their son to receive the best treatment possible. Also, they were able to keep their schedules free to work and for Justin to go to school.

Robyn says that Justin really enjoys his trips to New York because he and his father have a “set routine” while they are there, including staying at the Ronald McDonald House, eating at a nearby pizza place, and playing at a special park across the road from the hospital. While Justin has had a hard life, he is still able to shed some light on his situation.

Editor’s note: Candice is a rising junior at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia. She is majoring in communications with a concentration in film, and she also enjoys writing. During her internship, Candice hopes to gain more writing and professional experience. In return, she hopes to make a positive contribution to Mercy Medical Airlift.