Copter crash victims not badly hurt

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

PAHRUMP -- The crew of a Flight for Life helicopter that crashed Monday night in Pahrump suffered only minor injuries and were released from the hospital a few hours later.

Pilot Tim Rego, nurse Lisa Freeman and paramedic Rick Loughry were all taken to University Medical Center after more than 20 emergency vehicles rushed to the crash site on the eastern outskirts of Pahrump, about a mile south of State Route 160, said Richard Marshall, Nye County assistant sheriff.

"That many emergency vehicles is a lot for out here, but when you work with people every day, like we do with these flight crews, you develop a bond," Marshall said.

Monday's crash was reported at 8:48 p.m. after the helicopter came down in a desert area a few hundred feet from a cluster of homes near Hafen Ranch Road and Grain Mill Road.

The helicopter was attempting to land to pick up a patient when an oncoming car caused the aircraft to veer from its landing path, Marshall said.

"Preliminarily, it looks like the car turned out in front of the helicopter, and the pilot was forced to swerve," Marshall said. "That may have sent the helicopter toward the telephone lines, causing the pilot to swerve again and then crash."

The helicopter came to rest on its side with its main rotor broken into pieces and strewn across the area. The front of the cockpit was shattered, and the dust that the impact kicked up settled on the helicopter making it look like it had crashed and been abandoned years before.

Rego and Loughry were able to walk away from the accident. Freeman was helped from the wreckage after the helicopter's door was pried off.

"I think they're all going to be OK," Marshall said. "They were more shaken up than anything."

Freeman was taken to UMC by another helicopter and Rego and Loughry were transported to UMC via ambulance.

The patient that the flight crew was going to pick up before the crash was airlifted to a hospital by another helicopter.

Police are trying to locate the car that the pilot reportedly swerved to avoid.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration will investigate the crash.

The crash Monday night reminded rescue workers of another Flight for Life crew that was killed 18 months ago near Indian Springs when their helicopter went down in a snow storm.

In that crash, pilot James Bond Jr. and flight nurses Kathy Batterman and Leroy Shelton were killed.

When asked if crews thought about that accident as they worked Monday night, Marshall said, "Yes you do. Some of the people out here were talking about it, and I think that's part of the reason you saw so many come out here."

NTSB investigators found that weather was among the factors that caused the April 4, 1999 Flight For Life crash near U.S. 95 in Indian Springs. That helicopter was known as Lifeguard 2, as was the helicopter that went down Monday.

Southern Nevada's Flight For Life helicopters are provided by Louisiana-based Metro Aviation Inc., and transports patients from Pahrump, Primm, Las Vegas and the surrounding area.

"The helicopters are very important to the people that live in the outlying areas and towns," Marshall said. "Especially here where the Pahrump Medical Center is not open 24 hours a day, they can be the only means to get people to help."

Before the 1999 crash, the last fatal crash of a Flight For Life helicopter was in 1983, when an aircraft went down near Black Mountain in Henderson. A pilot, flight nurse and paramedic were killed in the crash.