Airports are Dangerous

I had a little fun at the airport today.

My flight school hangar is one building away from an Edwards Jet Center FBO (just think of it like a truck stop for airplanes). The local life flight company operates through Edwards, and this is important.

I was out for a flight, coming in to land when we got diverted off of the main runway for a Life flight taking priority on that one (we were just turning final, too. There's a parallel runway, so we didn't have to go around, but it was still weird). They're a higher priority than 99% of all flights, because they are flying emergency patients to better medical care, so they can kick us off the runway.

Anyway, we got on the ground and back to our hangar without further incident. So while my instructor was inside working on paperwork, I was tying down the airplane. I was just getting done when a plane over at Edwards cranked over and I heard a scream. Someone had started an airplane without checking to see if their propeller was clear. Unfortunately, a maintainer was in front of it and the propeller hit him in the arm and shoulder. The subclavian artery was punctured though not severed (the flesh was torn back, making the artery visible), and multiple bones were broken.

It's almost 200 yards from where I was to where this happened. It takes a while to get that far, and this is a problem because a person can bleed out in under a minute in the worst case scenario. This was where the poor guy's luck improved.

The ambulance that had delivered the life flight patient was still at Edwards, since there were donuts and coffee in the lobby and the two medics saw it go down. They got to the guy around five to ten seconds before I did and were getting to work. I offered to help (since I do have training) and was asked to support his head and neck while one of them went back to the truck to grab equipment.

So we got him packaged up and that was that. They left and I went back to my airplane. But it was definitely an interesting day, and quite the reminder of why we maintain situational awareness, and the importance of medical training.

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Airports are Dangerous