When a Product Saves a Life, It's Worth a Plug

LifeLine is a volunteer organization manned by 1,500 pilots who donate their time and aircraft to transporting 10,000 critically ill patients a year on a moment's notice. They have flown over 30,000 missions since they were founded in 1978. They are merging with another organization, Angel Flight, this month. These organizations are responsible for saving thousands of lives through the quick and generous actions of member pilots across America.

Mike Harbater was sitting at his desk in the Bronx going through a warehouse inventory list for his construction business. He was a little tired of flying having spent a large part of Sunday on an AirLifeLine mission transporting three children and their chaperone from actor Paul Newman's "Hole In The Woods" camp for children with cancer in upstate New York. They flew to JFK for their flight home to Switzerland. He was, as he describes it, "flown out."

A call came in from Sacramento, California. The LifeLine dispatcher sounded urgent so he put down the list. A liver had been located for a transplant patient who had to be flown to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania for surgery. The window was six hours. Mike was an hour by car from Republic Airport on Long Island where his Cessna Centurion was hangared.

Five hours. A quick glance at weather radar on the Internet showed constellations of storm cells, some organized into large systems, all over the northeast. Heavy rain and storms stretched from the DelMar, Virginia Peninsula to Northern New Jersey and were moving slowly northward. The only chance he had was to get north of the weather before it blocked his path westward. He advised the flight coordinator that there was a pretty good chance that he couldn't safely make the flight but that considering the emergency nature of the patient, he would certainly try.

After accepting the flight assignment, called his wife at their home in Far Rockaway, and then called ahead to the airport to have the plane fueled and ready. The patient would be waiting at the airport.

The weather was miserable. A stationary trough aloft was pumping gobs of moist, unstable Gulf air up the Atlantic Seaboard from deep in Dixie to the far reaches of New England. Daily towering cumulonimbus and embedded thunderstorms had been the rule for a week and there were no signs of change.  Flying through the busy North East corridor even in VFR conditions is a demanding task, and many regional airports were now below minimums. The clock was ticking.

He drove as fast as traffic would allow through the Bronx to the Throggs Neck Bridge glancing nervously at the leaden gray sky above; a hand-held radio tuned to a local weather frequency reported deteriorating conditions. An hour later he pulled into Republic Airport and up to the terminal where a small group of people were standing outside waving him over.

Patient Frank D. who was staying on Long Island, had gotten "The Call" from the transplant coordinator in Pittsburgh, PA. A potential transplantable liver was available and he was finally first on the list. Frank had contracted Hepatitis C while serving a tour of Army duty in Vietnam in 1969. Over the years the disease had slowly destroyed his liver and the now, cirrhotic organ had to be replaced if he was to survive.

Harbater got out of his car and strode quickly into the building heading straight for the terminal to get radar images of the region and reevaluate the flight for Go/No Go. The terminal screen was black, the network was down. Mike owned a portable weather radar system for his aircraft, Anywhere WX, from Control Vision. Out at the plane, he started up, pressed the weather button and 45 seconds later got a current radar picture. The flight was a Go: the mission was ON.

The Centurion took off at 12:28 PM after 24 minutes waiting for a clearance, filed for IFR routing to get around the minefield of storm systems. The route Air Traffic offered didn't look right against the recent radar returns on his Anywhere WX. He requested, and ultimately got cleared to Elmira NY, just south of the Finger Lakes. Multiple requests for NEXRAD through the AnywhereWX system offered definitive, near real-time images that allowed him to pick his way through the cells and towering storm clouds that were hidden in the murk. As they approached Elmira and made their way north around the last active cell, Mike told his passenger that as soon as they cleared this last red blotch on the screen they'd be making a hard left, direct to Pittsburgh; there was no more weather between them and their destination. This was corroborated by Cleveland Center under whose control they were at that time. Harbater also told him that without the AnywhereWX system, they'd still be in New York and this opportunity for survival would have been lost

For the next three hours, Harbater flew around storm cells with Anywhere WX at 11,000 feet. He couldn't fly any higher; his passenger wasn't in any condition to put on an oxygen mask. The route became a zigzag around thunderstorms and heavy rain cells: scud running for a good cause.

At 2:58 PM local time, the Centurion touched down at Allegheny Airport in Pittsburg. Taxiing in he could see the flashing lights of the waiting ambulance. He came to a stop, shut down the engine and helped his passenger out. At 3:05 PM with 55 minutes left in his transplant "window," Frank was on his way to the University medical center where a waiting transplant team prepped him for surgery. Seven hours later he was stable and recovering with a new liver-and a new life.

"The [Anywhere WX] weather system didn't just help, it saved this guy's life," said a very serious Mike Harbater. "I would never have made it through without it."

FMI: www.controlvision.com