Human Life Is Precious

It's amazing what humans do in order to preserve a human life. Unless, of course, we want to kill you instead of save your life. I am not going to argue capital punishment. Or war. This is not an argument blog. No ax. No edge to grind. I've said it before in the blog domain and I'll say it again: If I thought someone was going to hurt me, (or you) and I had to make the choice, I would do whatever I could to prevent a bad thing from happening. I would never make it in the Society of Friends.

In moral theology, the question: "When is it right to do an evil thing?" raises its beautiful head. There is a time when a person will have to choose between doing a physical evil and a moral evil. Yeah. Here's a good example: If the physician amputates a leg, that is a physical evil. Legs are supposed to remain joined to the rest of the body. But let's say the leg is infected and if it isn't removed, the rest of the healthy body will get dead. No problem. Except for one thing: If a person's body gets dead, then the person gets dead along with it. "We are our bodies," the Abbott used to remind us. His illustration was: "If someone steps on your foot, you say, 'Hey, you stepped on me. You stepped on ME.'" So sometimes you have to remove a portion of a person's body (which, while it is still is attached, is still them) in order to save the whole person. Yes, it would be a physical evil to remove the infected leg. But it would be a moral evil not to remove the infected leg.

Does anyone out there remember that SNL skit when Tony Danza was co-hosting and he and Joan Cusak are lying in bed as though they were a married couple and she starts asking him if he would still love her if she didn't have any legs, and then arms, and then she goes down the list of hypothetical amputations until she is just a brain? Yeah, that one? Anybody?

Here's a story example of what humans do each and every day in order to save a life.

Yesterday I was scanning the freqs (listening to the police/fire/medical channels) and I heard everyone screaming to a really bad crash. One patient was transported to the hospital and Life Flight was called. Very serious stuff. Lots of police, fire and medical responded to the scene, medical took calculated chances by driving really fast to the hospital, and the helicopter crew took calculated chances flying over to get the patient to be taken to a trauma center in Portland. But the helicopter pilot couldn't get into the landing pad at the hospital. Fade in/fade out. Part Deux....

So I'm sitting at the light and I see a helicopter flying low over the bay. At first I think it's the Coast Guard helo, but this one is red, not orange. Putting two and two together, it occurs to me that Life Flight has been dispatched for the patient associated with the really bad crash and that this is the Life Flight crew looking for a way around the marine layer that just showed up in the previous 20 minutes or so. I watch as the pilot flies west, then reappears in a steep bank and heads east along the bay and river, still flying low.

I was on my way to my own airport (a bit inland) to put the plane away from my earlier flight. When I get to my airport, here sits out on the ramp that big, red medical helicopter. I chat up the crew and get the pilot to help me put my airplane to bed. The pilot explained that the fog kept him from landing at the hospital and that the ambulance will bring the patient to the airport. Then it dawns on me that I am the only person who has a key to the airport gate, located about 80 yards from the aircraft. I go open the gate so that the ambulance can drive right up to the aircraft. Wow. I get to help! AND I get to witness what all these players train for.

Serendipity:

1) Later, after I show up late for dinner at my friends', I explain where I had been all this time. One of my other dinner guest friends explains that he had actually come upon the dust of the crash just as it was happening, but didn't witness the actual crash.

2) I had been flying earlier in the day with another friend (the one who has the green airplane---see pics, earlier posts). His wife is an intensive care nurse at our hospital. Her brother is an E.R. nurse in the same building and treated the patient from the crash at the hospital.

3) I had a flight lesson planned that did not materialize. Otherwise I would have pushed my plane into the hangar hours previous to all of the action instead of leaving it out. But because I left it out, I had to go put it away.

4) And because I had to put the plane away, I drove to the airport where I got to meet the helicopter pilot, check out all the cool flight instrumentation and witness the transfer from ambulance to the big red bird. AND someone there happened to show up with a key to the gate. HELLLLOOO!

No matter the circumstance, human life is precious. We can shine when we want to.

So, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Here are some pictures.....







































If you want something to happen when you're filming, all you have to do is turn the camera off. And that is just what happened while I was waiting for the chopper to lift off. The instant I hit the "off" button, the RPMs roared to full throttle. By the time I could turn the thing back on, the bird was about 30 feet in the air. The prop wash was so incredible! I will never stand this close on a gravel surface again. But if you want a really inexpensive skin peel, this is all you'd have to do.