Aces over 8s
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A helicopter carrying four people tipped over during takeoff in a remote swath of the Everglades on Wednesday morning, severely injuring one man and requiring an airboat rescue, according to police and fire officials.
The Bell Jet Ranger 206B helicopter flipped two miles west of the Sawgrass Expressway, injuring the leg and stomach of Jose Hernandez, 35, a worker who had been cutting and spraying invasive trees.
The pilot and two other workers were shaken but not hurt as they clung to the chopper in alligator- and snake-infested waters. Hernandez was rushed by airboat to solid ground and airlifted to North Broward Medical Center in serious condition, conscious and mumbling incoherently, police and fire officials said.
The accident marked the first time Broward Fire-Rescue used its new airboat, kept at the recently opened Alligator Alley station by Mile Marker 35, according to spokesman Capt. Dave Erdman.
"This is a prime example of why we wanted this out there," Erdman said. "It's an airboat ambulance."
Wednesday it was unclear why the chopper tipped. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to visit the crash site today and interview the pilot, Clifton Sullivan, 60, of Fort Pierce, who has been licensed to fly planes and helicopters since 1986.
Sullivan had been flying Hernandez and two other Applied Aquatics Technology Inc. employees to check areas that had recently been cleared of Melaleuca trees. Armed with herbicide and two-foot machetes, the trio was working for the South Florida Water Management District looking for the stubborn Melaleucas, an Australian tree introduced decades ago to suck parts of the Everglades dry.
On the scale of air disasters, this was minor mishap. Still, for the four men Wednesday was a harrowing morning.
Crews got a call of a downed helicopter at 7:51 a.m. As a helicopter took off to search from above, ground crews sped to the scene from the new fire station with the airboat in tow, racing 12 miles to a boat launch. About 8:38 a.m., the Broward Sheriff's Office helicopter saw the blue chopper lying on its side with a man standing on top of a pontoon frantically waving his hands, Erdman said.
With firefighter Mitch Stewart at the controls, the Sheriff's Office airboat sped five miles to the scene, following a path charted by his colleagues in the sky.
Before Fire Rescue got the airboat in March, medics would climb into helicopters with a bag of supplies and jump from a hovering aircraft into the water. The new airboat let rescuers bring medical equipment, like a backboard, to the scene and stabilize Hernandez. Federal privacy laws barred rescuers from describing his injuries.
The airboat sped two miles away to a levy, where a medical helicopter waited.
Airboats also ferried the other three crash victims to land. A shaken Sullivan was helped to an ambulance and ducked from the media crush. Records show he has had three other helicopter mishaps, including a 2002 crash in which he seriously injured his back.
The two uninjured Applied Aquatics employees, Mitchell Blankenship, 41 of Copeland, and Benito Rosale, 18, of Mexico, declined to speak to reporters.
Rosale, still wearing swamp waders, seemed especially upset by the injuries to his co-worker as unrelenting television cameras chased him.
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The Bell Jet Ranger 206B helicopter flipped two miles west of the Sawgrass Expressway, injuring the leg and stomach of Jose Hernandez, 35, a worker who had been cutting and spraying invasive trees.
The pilot and two other workers were shaken but not hurt as they clung to the chopper in alligator- and snake-infested waters. Hernandez was rushed by airboat to solid ground and airlifted to North Broward Medical Center in serious condition, conscious and mumbling incoherently, police and fire officials said.
The accident marked the first time Broward Fire-Rescue used its new airboat, kept at the recently opened Alligator Alley station by Mile Marker 35, according to spokesman Capt. Dave Erdman.
"This is a prime example of why we wanted this out there," Erdman said. "It's an airboat ambulance."
Wednesday it was unclear why the chopper tipped. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to visit the crash site today and interview the pilot, Clifton Sullivan, 60, of Fort Pierce, who has been licensed to fly planes and helicopters since 1986.
Sullivan had been flying Hernandez and two other Applied Aquatics Technology Inc. employees to check areas that had recently been cleared of Melaleuca trees. Armed with herbicide and two-foot machetes, the trio was working for the South Florida Water Management District looking for the stubborn Melaleucas, an Australian tree introduced decades ago to suck parts of the Everglades dry.
On the scale of air disasters, this was minor mishap. Still, for the four men Wednesday was a harrowing morning.
Crews got a call of a downed helicopter at 7:51 a.m. As a helicopter took off to search from above, ground crews sped to the scene from the new fire station with the airboat in tow, racing 12 miles to a boat launch. About 8:38 a.m., the Broward Sheriff's Office helicopter saw the blue chopper lying on its side with a man standing on top of a pontoon frantically waving his hands, Erdman said.
With firefighter Mitch Stewart at the controls, the Sheriff's Office airboat sped five miles to the scene, following a path charted by his colleagues in the sky.
Before Fire Rescue got the airboat in March, medics would climb into helicopters with a bag of supplies and jump from a hovering aircraft into the water. The new airboat let rescuers bring medical equipment, like a backboard, to the scene and stabilize Hernandez. Federal privacy laws barred rescuers from describing his injuries.
The airboat sped two miles away to a levy, where a medical helicopter waited.
Airboats also ferried the other three crash victims to land. A shaken Sullivan was helped to an ambulance and ducked from the media crush. Records show he has had three other helicopter mishaps, including a 2002 crash in which he seriously injured his back.
The two uninjured Applied Aquatics employees, Mitchell Blankenship, 41 of Copeland, and Benito Rosale, 18, of Mexico, declined to speak to reporters.
Rosale, still wearing swamp waders, seemed especially upset by the injuries to his co-worker as unrelenting television cameras chased him.
