By Jon Hilkevitch
Chicago Tribune
| Related Resource: Read full coverage of fatal Medevac crashes in ’08 |
WASHINGTON — Robert Blockinger drives ambulances for a living, and although he was worried about his ill daughter, it never crossed his mind that she would die while being transported from one hospital to another.
Kirstin Blockinger was on the second air-ambulance flight of her 14-month life last fall when the helicopter taking her to a Chicago medical facility crashed in west suburban Aurora, Robert and his wife, Brooke, said Tuesday in their first interview.
“I am very much into the emergency scene, and it has become quite obvious -- painfully obvious to my wife and I -- that there needs to be changes,” said Robert Blockinger, 24, a military medic specialist who served in Iraq with the Illinois National Guard. Back home, he drives ambulances for a private company, has been a firefighter in his rural Illinois community of Leland since 2000 and plans to begin classes to become a certified paramedic, he said.
The interview took place while the couple attended a hearing investigating widespread safety problems involving emergency medical helicopters, which last year had the worst fatal accident rate among all types of aviation, according to testimony presented at the hearing conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board.
At least 77 people have died in 85 medical helicopter accidents in the last six years, safety board member Robert Sumwalt said. Last year was the deadliest year on record with 35 fatalities.
The Blockingers’ “new mission in life” is to make the industry safer, they said.
“We are not out to put anyone out of business,” Robert Blockinger said. “But while we have lost all that we could ever lose, we want everyone else’s children to be safe. There is a lot that can be done to minimize the risk.”
His daughter Kirstin, who suffered from infantile spasms that led to seizures, and the three crew members on the flight operated by Air Angels Inc. of Bolingbrook died Oct. 15 after the helicopter struck a radio tower in an accident investigators have tentatively attributed to pilot error.
The Blockingers have filed a negligence lawsuit against Air Angels; Reach Medical Holdings Inc., the parent company; and the estate of pilot Delbert Waugh.
The Blockingers said they want the Federal Aviation Administration to require companies to enhance pilot training and assign two pilots to every flight, conduct more intensive preflight risk assessments and equip copters with new collision-avoidance technology and night-vision goggles to prevent accidents.
Officials at Helicopter Association International, a trade organization that represents medical helicopters, said accidents are occurring at a troublesome rate -- roughly 2 fatal accidents for every 100,000 hours of flight in 2008. U.S. commercial air carriers, by comparison, have not suffered a fatal accident in more than two years.
Legislation pending in Congress would put the regulation of the medical helicopter industry closer to the requirements that airlines must meet.
But the relatives of people killed in medical copter crashes said the progress is too slow and that FAA recommendations are not adequate to protect patients and the flight crews caring for them.
“There are some amazing, dedicated medical flight crew members at this hearing who want to make the FAA recognize there really is a face with each accident,” said Arlette Mann of Norridge, whose son William, 31, was the flight nurse on the Air Angels helicopter that crashed in Aurora.
William Mann worried about his own safety, especially regarding night flights, said his mother, who temporarily persuaded him to work in a different area of nursing. “He really trusted the pilots. But he said pilots told him that flying on a dark night without wearing night-vision goggles is like trying to drive on a highway with your headlights off,” Arlette Mann said.
Kirstin Blockinger’s condition had worsened since her seizures began. By last summer, she was being taken by ambulance about every two weeks to the emergency room at Central DuPage Hospital, her father said. Robert Blockinger was in Kansas training to work as a medic in Afghanistan when he received the call that the helicopter carrying his daughter from the Sandwich hospital to Children’s Memorial Hospital crashed.
Brooke Blockinger, 24, was met by a chaplain at Children’s Memorial when she walked into the hospital after getting lost during the drive from Valley West Hospital in Sandwich. “I feel robbed,” Brooke Blockinger said.
The couple have a son, Collin, who is almost 3.
“He understands that she is gone, but he doesn’t comprehend,” Brooke Blockinger said. “Every day he asks, ‘Is sissy going to come home?’ Over the holidays, he asked if Santa Claus was bringing Kirstin home for Christmas.”