Get to the Choppa!

Last Thursday Beth, Abbey and I had the opportunity to have quite a unique experience.  Through my wife’s efforts she was able to secure a 30 minute sight-seeing tour through Vortex Helicopter Services, located at the Finleyville airport.  The tour was a donation by Behr Construction.

Our tour started with a fly-by of our home followed by a trip to downtown Pittsburgh where we had flew over most of the major sites of the city.  We flew up and down the rivers, taking in the Point, both stadiums, the Cathedral of Learning and even the zoo, just to name a few of the sites.  Seeing how my last helicopter flight was my life flight trip when I got hurt, I have to say this one was much more enjoyable.  I highly recommend trying this out if you ever have the opportunity, the tour not the life flight.

Our pilot Carlos, and his wife Jacqueline, who are the owners of Vortex, were extremely accommodating to my situation and just genuinely gracious people do deal with.  While giving scenic tours is part of their business, during our flight Carlos explained what one of his main goals is with his company.  He was informing us that there is, and will continue to be, a shortage of EMT pilots in the country due to the fact that a lot of the existing pilots, who are veteran military pilots from the Vietnam era, are retiring and there aren’t enough younger pilots to replace them.  He goal is to help train a new generation of pilots to help fil this void.

Considering that my survival is directly corelated to access to EMT pilots, the least I can do is try to get this information out to as many people as possible and potentially connect aspiring pilots to Carlos and his operation and a need can be met.

I want to again thank Carlos and Jacqueline for everything they did for us and wish them much success in this endeavor.  Their success in this venture will inevitably save lives and that’s always a good thing.  It was for me and it needs to be for others in the future.  I don’t know what else I could do at the moment to help their cause but I’ll keep looking for ways….because that’s how I roll.  And I hope you’ll do the same.