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What do you think of when hear those whupping blades, a sound poundingly loud yet blurry? When you see that hovering helicopter overhead? I had choppers on the mind as I drove to work Tuesday morn. News came over the radio of a big wreck on the San Mateo bridge. "It’s bad." "don’t take westbound San Mateo-ALL lanes closed, entire westbound direction closed."
Well, that sure sucks for a workday, I thought. I fiddled with the ipod and worried if the back up from bridge would spill over to 880 and cloud my commute too. "Eastbound side may be closed to allow ambulance as this is an injury accident
with 3 big rigs" KCBS reported.
Wow. Goddamn I have always hated those bigrigs, those giants on they way to Port of Oakland that fling rocks at my windshield, pit craters into the roads, and once almost ran me off the road and mushed me. Their sheer size are a certain death guarantee if one collides. The well known fatigue of their drivers is always a looming liability, like the guy who brought down a section of freeway just a few months ago.
"…we previously reported that eastbound side may close for medical access but that is not the case. They are bringing in the life rescue helicopter."
I glanced up. Saw a chopper making its way south. I know that it is NOT a good sign if they feel the need to bring out the Heli. Someone must really be in bad shape. I start thinking about how fortunate I am to live in a place where no one questions the value of a medical Helicopter. Where if someone is grievously injured, this immense expense and effort will be made. I always think of stuff like this, like when whole teams of people go searching for those who get lost hiking. How lucky we are.
In a place like Nicaragua where we visited, or most of China, I think if one has a horrific accident…well, tough luck. You’d probably die on the road as has always been just the way things work in most of the world. No one could afford a helicopter rescue or search team. Then again, I guess they might, solely due to the fact that I am an American. Which also makes me sad that one’s life is valued so differently based on things like citizenship and credit records. My country and my credit cards could cover a medical evac. Thus, some effort would be expended to not allow me to bleed to death on a road somewhere…
I think for many Americans, especially of my generation (read: non-veteran, post-Vietnam) they think of a helicopter as being a cool prop when they went to the theater and enjoyed Miss Saigon. (which, although I loved many of the beautiful songs, I do not care to patronise, because I am sick and tired of idiot plots featuring "how beautiful it is for a woman to sacrifice herself for love". Pah. Beautiful, my ass. I’ve no patience for romanticizing tragedy/callousness ) I’ve known friends and colleagues who remember the real helicopters over Vietnam. Who can remember bombs falling from planes, families fleeing on boats, or on a chopper if one was lucky.
Helicopters occasionally appeared over our apartment in Los Angeles. That was 1995. Sometimes our hair stood on end, rendering us fearful to go outside. Directly around the corner, on the same block was the home of Vanessa & Anthony. A place I often hung out. But the choppers made us wonder who they were in pursuit of. What felon, escapee, or suspect could be hiding in the bushes of a backyard, staying out of the searchlights? Even V & A’s house seemed too far to venture alone on a night the helis were out. We’d laugh, all cynical and tough, "L.A., man" and shake our heads. But it’s not so funny to feel like you’re living in a movie sometimes, especially a crime movie. Us law-abiding types hope that Smokey tracks down the ones he’s tracking. But I also feel a twinge of empathy, for how it must feel to be hunted by this machine.
In the year 2000, I lived alone, again in L.A.
One night the helicopters buzzed by. I shrugged. Had become accustomed to this sort of thing. But then, it circled back. and again. and again. more than twenty minutes later, it was still cruising overhead. My pulse went up, and I stepped quietly into the apartment and slid my doors shut. locked. I had a big glass door I liked to keep open, to enjoy cool breezes and the fragrant jasmine plant I tended on the teeny patio. Now it just seemed like an entryway for a fugitive. I called P. "This helicopter has been circling my neighborhood, like RIGHT over our complex…!" We talked ’til it flew away. I wonder if they found what they were looking for.
I rode in a FEMA Helicopter over New Orleans, November 2005. It was only my second day in a 2 week deployment that later stretched longer into Thanksgiving. The exhaustion of our 14 hour days hadn’t quite caught up yet, and I felt so proud to wear my orange "SAMHSA EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM " shirt. Initially, we were excited, smiling with my new comrades, we took photos of one another inside the chopper. Most of us had never been inside one of these bad boys before. Darrell had, as a young Marine in Vietnam, many moons ago. We put on enormous ear coverings, those chopper blades are LOUD! We gave up trying to speak, although at times we scribbled on a little notepad and pointed. I was handed little notes like: "there is the 9th ward" and "she said that used to be a marsh."
We became grim and serious. Felt compelled to document, photograph the truth. We pressed ourselves into chopper windows and I strained the focus on my camera. We felt this desperate inability to convey the scope- the wide, wide views of devastation. The rows of home foundations left bare, little squares there had been communities. boats on top of houses, cemetaries flooded, buildings flattened and drowned. We started to succumb to heat and grief and fatigue. Another note came scribbled on a pad: "that’s where it broke".
One of the levees. I shook my head and we all had the same sentiment, "that’s it?!" that teeny ‘ol levee was supposed to preserve all these swaths of homes? We got off the chopper with an odd mix of determination to work our asses off, and a sense of futility at the enormity of the situation. About a week later we were told that FEMA was no longer taking new SAMHSA volunteers up on helicopter rides to survey the damage. They said it cost them about 10 grand each time they did. I don’t want to seem ungrateful…I did learn a lot from that heli ride and it helped me understand what I was getting into…but I hope to hell FEMA did not really spend that much! 10 grand was something the people desperately needed for things like clothes, medical supplies, and home rebuilding. The first FEMA trailer homes arrived around Thanksgiving. It’s unacceptable to me that so many families are still living in them now.
Helicopters now fly over Richmond. I got a call to please do an urgent debrief/assessment this week. I talked with a child who had survived many rounds of gunfire the night before we met. Here eyes stunningly beautiful, like a cat. But full of dissassociation. She smiled when I commended her instincts, explained how our bodies act sometimes faster than our conscious minds think. As in NOLA, I know my skills are limited. Sometimes all we docs can do is provide education and provide witness, and a receptacle of acceptance for the fear, pain, anger. I am unable to remedy it, take away her pain and fear. But I refuse to accept that we are powerless to change it. It’s this myth of powerlessness that fuels the complacency which sickens our communities. I felt an urge to take that teeny body in my arms and bring her home with me. To live in a city where 99% of us never worry about gun toting thugs guns tracking our trip to the mall or grocery store. Where we currently live, the only helicopter I’ve ever seen, has been the one that provides my morning traffic report.
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