The NTSB will gather Tuesday to give a cause for the accident in August 2011 that killed four people


WASHINGTON — A medevac pilot was sending and receiving text messages before a crash that killed all four people on board, it emerged Monday.


Bloomberg.com reported that it's the first time such distractions have been implicated in a fatal commercial aviation accident.

The NTSB will gather Tuesday to give a cause for the accident in August 2011 that killed four people – patient Terry Tacoronte, Pilot James Freudenbert, Randy Bever, a flight nurse, and Chris Frakes, a paramedic – and to discuss the documented seven texts sent and received by the pilot prior to the crash, according to the article.

Freudenbert, 34, disclosed to a coworker before the crash that he hadn’t slept well the night before his flight and he failed to refuel the helicopter before flying to a hospital in Bethany, Missouri, according to NTSB records.

He recognized the mistake after landing at the hospital and spoke to a company dispatcher about where he could get more fuel and was headed to Midwest National Air Center Airport before the helicopter crashed, according to Bloomberg.

The Air Methods Corp. (AIRM) helicopter crashed in a field after running out of fuel. Electronic devices used by pilots during flight are prohibited by company rules, according to the reports. 

“This is a classic example of dividing attention in a way that compromises safety,” David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City who has studied how personal electronic devices cause distraction, told Bloomberg.

Full article: http://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/1429050-Texting-while-flying-linked-to-fatal-medevac-crash/

By Dan Elliott
Associated Press

DENVER — An autistic man lived on frogs and roots as he wandered for weeks in the remote Escalante Desert of southern Utah until being rescued, emaciated but alive.

William Martin LaFever, 28, of Colorado Springs, Colo., told rescuers that in addition to the bits of food he scavenged, including a few frogs he caught, he drank water from the Escalante River while attempting to walk from Boulder, Utah, to

Page, Ariz., a distance of approximately 90 miles or more by the route he appeared to be taking.

The Garfield County Sheriff's Department estimated he had traveled about 40 miles over at least three weeks before he was found Thursday.

"It is some of the most rugged, unforgiving terrain you will find anywhere on Earth, jagged cliffs, stone ledges, sandstone, sagebrush, juniper," sheriff's spokeswoman Becki Bronson said in a telephone interview.

"Where William was hiking, there just isn't anyone out there," she said. "There are no people. There are no towns."

The sheriff's department said it was remarkable that searchers aboard a helicopter were able to find LaFever at all, much less alive.

Deputy Ray Gardner, who had recently completed training in search and rescue operations for people with autism and was aboard the helicopter, said LaFever would not have survived another 24 hours.

The helicopter took LaFever to Garfield Memorial Hospital in Panguitch. The hospital said it could not release any information on his condition.

http://www.ems1.com/search-rescue/articles/1314518-Autistic-man-rescued-after-3-weeks-in-Utah-desert/

By Maria Babbage
The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Ornge failed to do its job when it spent $6 million on medical interiors for its new helicopters that didn't allow paramedics to perform CPR and other life-saving procedures at all times, a former top executive testified Wednesday.

Tom Lepine, who was fired as Ornge's chief operating officer, said he only discovered the problem with the medical interiors of the AW-139 helicopters in late 2010, after the first chopper went into service.

Ornge paid $144 million for 12 helicopters from Italian firm AgustaWestland, whose dealings with Ornge have come under intense scrutiny. It also paid $6 million for the Swiss-manufactured Aerolite medical interiors.

Lepine, a former paramedic, acknowledged that Ornge didn't ensure that the helicopter interiors were suitable when it made the deal.

"I think it was an absolute failure of process that there was no prototype done," he told a legislative committee.

"That would have been caught if we had done a prototype and it was not done."

Full Story: http://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/1295689-5-incidents-resulting-in-patient-death-linked-to-ORNGE-helicopter-interiors/