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Sat Oct 11 16:03:06 BST 2008

On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 2:34 AM, <walkersteve at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Stephen
>
> Enough OK. Enough.
>
> You have made your views very clear, which is fine. I am sure you are
> acting with good intentions. But honestly your diatribe has now well
> surpassed acceptable limits with the following offensive comments
>
> > Bass and Scalea should just go piss on the graves of Stephen, Mickey,
> Tanya
> > and Ashley.
>
> > Yes, I believe it is located in front of Bass' desk so the person
> assigned
> > to the committee can grovel easily.
>
> You seem to be focused on criticising others rather than finding a way
> forward. A lot of heat, but minimal light.

Actually I have made just much of a point of indicating where changes need
to be made as I have pointed out the major players who stand in the way of
those direly needed improvements.  Simply because I believe those who turn a
blind eye are as responsible for the crashes as anyone else does not decide

>
>
> Like it or not, some people will just see things differently to you. They
> are also probably acting with good intentions. However, we should be able to
> disagree without becoming disagreeable.
>

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Actually, I think that Dr. Bass and Dr. Scalea probably do think they are
doing right by their patients and colleagues- in other words, have the best
of intentions- but that does not obviate the need to call them to account
for the lack of evidence that they are correct.   This sort of "the system
is fine, but we are going to whitewash the public so they will be quiet"
attitude is no different (except in scale) from holding the captain of a
ship responsible if his first mate does something stupid and grounds the
ship on a reef because the oversight expected from the senior officers was
simply not there.

I do agree that we should try to handle this in a professional manner, but
all of us (myself included) have our moments where we get a little
hyperbolic just to convey our message.  That is just the nature of debate
and being human.  I do apologize for that part on my end, but I do not
apologize for my dissent.  I do appreciate your professionalism in the way
you addressed me, as this is a total departure from the normal response I
have received from aeromedical personnel since wading into this debate.  I
was spit at and cussed at by a flight paramedic at one of the hospitals here
the other day when he realized who I was.

>
> A panel to review to program at Maryland is a great idea. This must be
> multi-disciplinary, and must be fairly balanced with representation from
> "both sides". As much as possible, recommendations should be based on
> evidence rather than prejudice (from either side).
>

Exactly.  Dr. Mattox pointed out that all we (the dissenting side) want is
the other side to support their stance with evidence as much as we try to
support our position with it.  If Bass, Scalea or any other member of the
aeromedical community can show me they are honestly committed to operations
that are defensible beyond the typical PR spin that they put out about
"saving" lives and can produce irrefutable data that helicopters save lives
in the settings we are debating over, I will change my stance.  That is the
point of this being a science based profession rather than simply a cult.

>
> The recommendations from this panel may well have implications for other
> programs throughout the US. Certainly I would hope that other programs would
> at least review these recommendations. If so, then this would seem to be
> long overdue.
>

That is the hope, and given some of the behind the scenes information I am
privy to, we may actually get some useful progess.

>
> As an emergency physician working part time with a helicopter service in
> Australia, I (and my colleagues) have been shocked and saddened by the
> number of recent fatal crashes in the US. Some of this reflects your size -
> there are possibly more helicopter programs in the US than in the rest of
> the world combined. So some of this is explainable, but not all.

Actually any time you lose over 1 percent of the entire fleet in a single
year, that's not just a matter of numbers.  That is a sign of a major issue
that probably is multifactoral and can only be overcome through reductions
in the number of flights and restrictions on how the remaining flights are
carried out.   We (the public, the FAA, etc) will not allow the pressure to
make profits nor the ego of crews to endanger the safety of airline
operations, so I do not see any difference in similarly regulating the air
ambulance industry and holding them to account for those instances when they
do screw up.

> Something else is going on. And we need to find out what that is - with
> integrity, openess, and dispassionately.

My passion for this is simply to determine what is right- regardless of how
it compares to my current stance.  All of my research, all of my activities
and all of my stances are completely open to criticism and questioning.  The
same can not be said for other parties.   I am simply asking that they be
held

>
>
> It is a tragedy that well meaning people have died while trying to help
> others. It is even more so if they have died in vain - which would appear to
> have sometimes been the case. But please let us not blindly criticize them,
> as well as their colleagues still mourning their loss. Instead, let is try
> to learn something from all this. Those that have died deserve nothing less.
>

Preaching to the choir.....I've lost friends on both of the past two
crashes, so I am still mourning their loss.  However, I do not see any of
the questions that have been proffered by myself or anyone else on this list
as blind criticism.  They have all been rather focused on specific issues or
specific mismanagment of the system.  We owe our fallen colleagues nothing
less than to not abandon the struggle to assure that we keep the mistakes of
the past from being repeated time and again as they have been this year.

That being said, as Lou pointed out, thank you for a professional and well
stated response.  If we had more people like you on both sides of the issue,
maybe this would be resolved quickly.

-- 
Stephen L. Richey, CRT
Aviation Injury Research Project Leader
Saginaw Valley State University
Work E-mail: slrichey at svsu.edu
Home Office Phone: 248-366-4452

"It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring
momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are
always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen
themselves."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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