Chopper!

The girls and I were chilling on the porch having a beer when my spider sense started to tingle.   Yeah, I know I’m weird but I have the ability to sense or feel the vibrations of an approaching helicopter before the audible sound announces its arrival.  It is the only Super Hero Power I possess and of little use for anything except blogging about it.  It simply doesn't account for much.  Yet there was no mistaking the tingling - there was a chopper out to the southwest and it was incoming!   

I had enough foreboding warning to not only catch a screen grab of the Flight Radar track but I was able to photo the chopper (as it predictably) flew over the house. 

click on images for a closer look

 

When Eagle III air rescue makes a run to fetch someone further up the peninsula that happens to be in a really bad way the outward-bound flight path is almost always directly over our house.  I tell Jill we are a navigation point – she will tell you that it is all coincidence.  The return flight track will vary depending-upon returning a patient to Green Bay or Appleton.   In this instance the outbound action occurred just before 4 PM and the chopper returned (predictably over the house) in the direction of Green Bay just after 5 PM.  Hope things turn out OK.   

In case you are wondering about why anybody needs a chopper rescue around these parts it’s a not so very small matter of distance and the availability of medical services in rural America.  High level trauma and medical treatment is centralized in the major population centers such as Green Bay and the Fox Valley – a potentially multi-hour trip one-way by highway-bound ambulance if you suffered a serious farm machinery accident further up the peninsula. 

I sure hope that I never need to utilize the air ambulance service but it’s comforting to know that if you have a serious accident or medical event someone can guide that chopper into an adjacent field and airlift you to medical attention, fast! 

You can learn a whole lot more about Eagle III county rescue and air ambulance services here. 

Channeling Walter “Radar" O’Reilly……..

Edit to add:

Same date - 6:28 PM - Eagle III making another run - predictably directly overhead.