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Saving Lives, One Helicopter Flight at a Time
Saving Lives, One Helicopter Flight at a Time
By Leonard Shapiro
Jeff Wright was about to graduate from college at the University of Colorado-Denver with a degree in computer science when he was driving near Custer, South Dakota and saw a helicopter on the side of the road with a sign advertising tours of nearby Mount Rushmore. He was 21, had never been in a helicopter, but was about to go sky high in a two-passenger aircraft on a riveting ride that would change his life forever. “We were flying around and I was just watching the pilot,” he recalled. “I just kept thinking to myself ‘wow, where do I sign up for this?’ I was totally hooked that day. I went back to Denver and I decided I didn’t really want to do computers any more.”
Fast forward 27 years, and Wright is living the dream. Now a Middleburg area resident with his wife, Laura, he’s based at the Leesburg Airport and flying helicopters for PHI Air Medical, a national company that bills itself as the leading air ambulance provider in the U.S. PHI transports more than 22,500 patients each year, operating out of 82 bases across the country.
For Wright, 48, you might say flying was in the genes. His uncle, a Navy pilot, survived being shot down during the Vietnam War and was rescued by a helicopter. His father, an attorney, always wanted to be a pilot, but was turned down by the military because he was color blind.
Wright had no such problem. Not long after that Mount Rushmore excursion, he signed up for flight school back in Denver. It was a two-year program that led to becoming a flight instructor and amassing many more hours in the air. He worked for one company that did tours over Alaskan glaciers. Then it was six years flying around the Gulf of Mexico transporting workers back and forth to offshore oil and gas rigs.
“That was eight hours and 60 landings a day,” he said, adding that in 2017, a friend went to work for PHI in Manassas and suggested he join him. “It was more money, not as much stress and very satisfying work.”
These days, he flies a seven-passenger craft with a medic and a nurse on board, and they handle all manner of medical emergencies. When a rider falls off a horse out in a field in Upperville and needs to be transported to a hospital in a hurry, Wright and his team get the call and within minutes they’re on the scene. The medic and nurse stabilize the patient and Wright flies them all to the nearest hospital.
“We do horse accidents all the time,” he said. “People jumping, fox hunting. We deal with ATV roll-overs, car accidents, drunk drivers, heart attacks, strokes, about anything you can think of. They’re usually 20- to 30-minute flights and it would take much longer to drive them in an ambulance, especially in rush hour.”
In his seven years with PHI, he’s done over 800 medical flights. His territory includes Loudoun, Fauquier, Clarke and Frederick counties and he flies to most local hospitals. Three or four times a year, he’ll transport patients to hospitals in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, a 70- to 80-minute flight away.
“I do nothing medical, that’s all handled by the medic and the nurse,” he said. “But it’s extremely rewarding work. We’re saving lives.”
With no computer science necessary.
