Charles Braithwait was always on time. That's why his wife, Sandra, was worried when he was several minutes late to pick her up for an after-work dinner date.
After waiting several minutes, she called his cell phone.
"He'd been trying to get his phone out of his pocket. He said 'Sandra, come quickly — I'm sick."
It was a typical Wednesday evening at work on Dec. 2, 2009, for mechanic Harold Denman. He was working on a truck when he started feeling a little queasy.
"There had been a bug going around, so I just thought I was getting a cold, didn't think much of it," said 56-year-old Denman.
But his supervisor saw something Denman didn't see.
The National Transportation Safety Board has released an advisory regarding Meteorological Evaluation Towers (METs). These towers are installed to gather wind data from areas that may be used for wind development projects. The towers are generally less than 200 feet tall and are typically not lit or marked well.
These factors can make them difficult to see from the air and can pose a danger to helicopters during the landing and takeoff portions of flights. The towers are often temporary and are erected overnight, making them hard to track.
LifeFlight Eagle is broadening its safety efforts by launching the LifeFlight Eagle Safety Network, an effort to extend our safety practices to the EMS agencies and hospitals we work with every day.
LifeFlight Eagle Safety Coordinator, Joe Coons, said the Safety Network program is striving to ensure the EMS agencies and hospitals we work with are all on the same page when it comes to aviation and patient safety.
