Chopper

The helicopter was flying low and I could easily see people in their backyards waving at us. I waved back as the wind whistled through my helmet. The pilot’s voice came over the earphones,  overpowering the steady thump-thump of the rotor blades."We are about three minutes from touchdown." I thought the pilot must be ex military, a real treetop flier, or perhaps he had smuggled dope across the boarder, but I had to admit to myself the ride was thrilling.

I looked down at my patient, 14 yr old Sammy. He was smiling despite being on a ventilator and breathing through a tracheostomy, smiling because after nine months in a hospital, he was at last going home. Nine months. It was almost like  he was being born again. Soon he would emerge from the safe womb of the chopper into … what?  A one hundred year old farmhouse and a tiny room packed with medical supplies and equipment. But it overlooked the fields he had grown up playing and working on, part of a tightly knit farm family. The diving accident that had nearly killed him had left him paralyzed and on a ventilator, but his face glowed with the anticipation of being home at last. I had always admired his positive attitude despite his crushing injury, always been inspired by his family’s burning to take him home, and as I took one last look at Sammy sparkling eyes, I felt I had made the right decision in letting him come home.

We circled the farm. I could see the old farmhouse, the barn and the  newly planted acreage, and now Sammy’s family waving from the yard, well away from our designated landing area. We dropped the last 100 feet slowly, gingerly, dust whipping into the family’s faces obscuring our touchdown. Then as the dust slowly settled we switched the ventilator over to battery power and unloaded the stretcher. Sammy was home.