to hospitals and clinics for treatment.
Local businessmen volunteer to fly patients for treatment
Pilots are accustomed to flying through wind, rain, the
dark of night. But rarely must they fly through tears.
That’s what Jeffrey Jacober found himself doing four years ago while on his
first mission for Angel Flight Northeast, a charitable organization that provides
free flights to patients who need help reaching a hospital for chemotherapy,
reconstructive surgeries or other vital treatments.
In the back of Jacober’s six-seat Beechcraft Bonanza airplane sat Laurie,
a 12-year-old burn victim from Syracuse. A trailer fire several months earlier
left third-degree burns over nearly 90 percent of her body. Her feet and hands
had been amputated, her face all but gone, Jacober said.
Shocked, he carried Laurie from the awaiting volunteer van on the tarmac,
strapping her in for the one-hour flight to Shriners Hospital in Boston for
one of her many reconstructive surgeries.
“I knew I was picking up a burn victim, but I had no idea the extent of her
injuries,” said Jacober, a 49-year-old executive from Providence. “I was overcome
with emotion. Here was this little girl who had survived this fire, and now
she’s in my plane and I’m flying her. It helps you realize that what you’re
doing is such a small piece compared to what they’re going through. It’s a warm,
humbling feeling.”
It’s also an immeasurably rewarding one, says Jacober and other volunteer
pilots.
North Andover, Mass.-based Angel Flight Northeast is an affiliate of Angel
Flight America, a national nonprofit group. The national network of 5,000 volunteer
pilots transported 25,000 patients last year, many of them cancer or burn victims
from relatively remote areas who require chemo or radiation treatments, surgeries
or other procedures at faraway hospitals. Nearly half are children.
Passengers typically are referred to Angel Flight by a hospital, doctor or
social-service agency. They are either too far away or too sick to take public
transportation, and can’t afford to pay airfare for treatment regimens that
typically require multiple trips. Angel Flight also makes “compassion flights”:
transporting family members who otherwise couldn’t make it to the hospital to
be with a critically ill, injured or dying loved one.
Keith Krewson, 78, has been flying for Angel Flight since retiring in 1997
from his job as vice president of administration at Roger Williams Medical Center
in Providence. Unlike many recreational pilots, retirement for Krewson was supposed
to mean less flying – he had been commuting in his 1965 Piper Comanche airplane
five days a week from his home on Nantucket to Providence.
He wasn’t about to give up his beloved plane. But he says he needed a good
reason to continue taking to the sky.
“I don’t like just going out and flying around anymore. Those days are long
past for me,” said Krewson, a World War II Marine veteran. “I figured if I was
going to keep the airplane I should do something worthwhile with it.”
He found the answer at a flying club he belonged to in Beverly, Mass., when
he happened upon a presentation being given by Larry Camelin, the founder of
Angel Flight Northeast, one of seven regional Angel Flight affiliates.
Since then, Krewson has become something of an Angel Flight iron man, one
of the most prolific pilots in the national organization’s 34-year history.
He averages nearly two flights a week, and notched his 300th flight on Nov.
12 – a 47-year-old Nantucket woman whom he has flown back and forth to Boston
seven times for chemotherapy treatments.
There are many repeat customers, Krewson says. His most frequent passenger
was a man in his 60s from Presque Isle, Maine, near the Canadian border. Krewson
flew him and his wife to Boston some 30 times for chemotherapy.
A typical mission for Krewson lasts around six hours. He flies from Nantucket
to pick up his passenger, who might live anywhere from northern Maine to as
far south as Baltimore, and as far west as Cleveland. From there he flies to
a hospital, usually in Boston. Sometimes he’ll wait an hour or two for the patient
to receive treatment; longer appointments require another Angel Flight pilot
to take the passenger home.
He always tries to fly with a co-pilot – a friend, a member of his Masonic
Lodge, or occasionally his wife Peggy, 75, who also is a pilot. Krewson says
passengers feel more at ease when they can see someone’s face smiling back at
them from the cockpit, instead of the back of his head.
Krewson often talks with patients and their family members through his headset,
although he says he’s careful not to pry into the nature of their treatments.
They typically talk openly to him about their illness or injury, though. Many
passengers over the years have been terminally ill.
“Many times Angel Flight will call and say ‘Just to let you know, so-and-so
passed away,’” Krewson said. “You learn not to get that close.”
That’s not always easy, says Jacober, who is chief executive of The Ocean
Group Inc., a Providence company that sells resources to startup businesses.
Jacober ended up flying Laurie, now 16, from her home in Syracuse to Shriners
in Boston more than a dozen times over a three-year span.
“They usually share their stories,” Jacober said of his passengers. “It seems
like they feel an immediate connection to the pilot.”
Angel Flight volunteers give more than their time. The cost of every flight
comes out of the pilot’s own pocket – including fuel, maintenance, insurance
and landing fees (although most airports waive them).
Krewson estimates a typical trip costs an average of $400 in fuel and other
expenses. He logged 93 charitable flights last year. To help cover the cost,
Krewson has been driving a Nantucket tour bus a day or two a week from May to
October.
Jacober bought a new plane a few years ago – an eight-seat Pilatus PC-12 jet
– which is far more expensive to fuel than his old plane. He estimates an average
Angel Flight trip costs more than $1,000.
But he says the reward is immediate and powerful – usually paid in the form
of a hug or a smile.
“At the CEO level, unfortunately most of the giving we do is writing a check,”
Jacober said. “The satisfaction I get from (Angel Flight) far outweighs any
check I’ve ever written.”
Mike Colias is a contributing writer to PBN.
