Funeral replaces wedding

Monday, Sept. 9, 2002 | 11:19 a.m.

Kevin Guenard fell in love with Kalaya Jarbsunthie after seeing a television show about paramedics that featured her.

Also a paramedic and nurse, he moved from Wisconsin to Las Vegas to win her heart. They were to be married Oct. 5 at First Shepherd Lutheran Church. The invitations had been sent.

Guenard's dreams were shattered early Saturday morning, when Jarbsunthie, 31, and two other crew members were killed aboard a Mercy Air Service helicopter that crashed off Interstate 15 across the Nevada-California border.

"She was everything, she was all I wanted in the world," Guenard said.

Nurse Ana Coburn, 30, of Las Vegas and pilot Matthew Butler, 46, of Pahrump also died. No patients were on board.

National Transportation and Safety Board investigators were on the scene Sunday until nightfall trying to determine what happened to the aircraft. An investigator from the NTSB's Texas office was heading up the inquiry.

Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke said he went to the crash site on Saturday.

"From the huge dip in the ground, it appeared as if the helicopter fell out of the sky," he said, from about 150 feet altitude.

Butler may have been trying to land the craft, a Bell 222 rescue helicopter, because the landing lights were on at the time of the crash, Lieseke said. Witnesses said the craft exploded in a fireball after smashing into the ground.

No distress call came from the helicopter, said Lee Haney, a spokeswoman for Mercy Air.

According to NTSB records, owners of the Bell 222 along with 13 other Bell models had been notified in September 1996 that some replacement parts had been produced and sold without Federal Aviation Administration approval. The aviation report advised helicopter owners to inspect their craft.

It was unclear whether the helicopter that crashed had the unauthorized parts.

The fatal crash came as a shock to family members.

Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, who raised Jarbsunthie, was taken to Lake Mead Hospital with chest pains Saturday after hearing the news. Tests showed she had not had a heart attack.

"It's unbelievable," Kincaid-Chauncey said in shock as she prepared to leave the hospital Sunday. "It's unbelievable."

Jarbsunthie had been flying with the air ambulance for about two months, said Frank Kincaid, 30, the youngest of nine children raised by Kincaid-Chauncey. "She loved what she did, she loved helping people and she loved to make a difference."

After riding ground ambulances for 10 years, Jarbsunthie took to the air, Guenard said. "You see a lot of things, like that little girl that got shot yesterday in North Las Vegas," he said. "Every day she came home, she had another story. For her, in the air, it was a nice break."

Guenard, a paramedic and a nurse for Southwest Ambulance, was on his way to work when he heard that a Mercy Air helicopter had crashed about 4:40 a.m. Saturday on its way to an automobile accident near Baker, Calif.

He tried to call Jarbsunthie on her cell phone, but could not reach her.

"He came over and told our mom and then came upstairs and told me," Frank Kincaid said.

"Everybody's first reaction was a complete shock," he said.

Neighbor Vincent Trejo and his daughter Lupita, 22, were looking forward to the wedding, after receiving their invitation.

"We were so happy to be going to the wedding, now we are going to a funeral," Trejo said.

Grief for other crew members was felt in rural Nevada counties as well.

Flags in Pahrump, where the helicopter was based, would fly at half staff today, Nye County Commission Chairman Jeff Toguchi said.

"We are devastated," Toguchi said.

Lieseke said Butler, the pilot, was one of his top deputies, along with his wife, who joined the office before Butler.

"Everyone in our agency is taking this pretty hard," Lieseke said.

The couple had three children.

"It's a terrible tragedy for anyone," Lieseke said Sunday. "They were trying to save other lives and they lost their own."

Toguchi said he also knew Coburn, the nurse, whose mother is former White Pine County Commissioner Cheryl Noriega.

Noriega had resigned her commission seat about a month ago to move to Las Vegas and live with her recently divorced daughter and help her care for her two children, Toguchi said.

Mercy Air, based in Fontana, Calif., operates 11 helicopters from nine bases between Southern Nevada and California, Haney said. This is the first accident in the company's history, she said.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of our crew that were lost in this terribly unfortunate accident," said Mercy Air President and CEO David Dolstein in a prepared statement.

Last year Mercy purchased Flight for Life, a competing air medical company that had been involved in a previous fatal rescue helicopter accident.

Three employees were killed in that helicopter crash on April 3, 1999, about 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Pilot James Bond, Jr., 42, and two flight nurses, Kathy Batterman, 44, and Leroy Shelton, 37, died when the Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Bo-105 crashed just off Old Ben Road near Indian Springs. The NTSB ruled that pilot error and poor weather that dropped visibility to less than 50 yards caused the crash.

The Batterman family recently received a $5 million settlement following the accident.