Like I said, I was very saddened by the crash. I'm very sorry for the loss of your friend. However, a much bigger tragedy would be to hold the whole system that killed your friend up as flawless.
It seems pretty clear to me that CANMAN13 isn't holding up the MSP system as flawless.
One of the patients that night was uninjured enough to not only survive their initial supposedly serious vehicle accident, but the following AIRCRAFT CRASH and subsequent multiple hour wait for rescue.
Yeah, but most of the people who were killed weren't just uninjured "enough" but were uninjured at all full stop. Until the crash, of course. Why one person was had minor injuries survived while other persons who had no injuries at all were killed is ineffable.
To be honest, I have no idea what was behind the decision to transport that patient in the helicopter.
I ask you to explain to me ANY reason this individual should have been transported by the riskiest mode of transport available outside of a protocol built aroun justifying 8 taxpayer-funded aircraft?
Two things need to be pointed out for the record here. The first is that there weren't eight helicopters, there were twelve. Eight on active duty, four in reserve. The second fact is that the helicopter aren't funded by taxpayers per se. They are funded by automobile owners. To my knowledge, the funding for the program comes entirely from vehicle registration fees. Now, many people registering vehicles may very well also be taxpayers, but to say taxpayers pay for something implies that it's the taxes that pay for that something, but this is not the case here.
I've read the report, and you know as well as I do I'm not just "shooting off my mouth" because I "can't cut it". There were MANY deficiencies noted, if MSP is taking steps to correct them than they are on the right road.
I believe that they are taking steps, whether they're the right steps or the steps that you, personally, would approve of, I have no idea. At least they're trying to improve. Unfortunately, it is all too common that progress for improvement does not happen until there's a tragedy that puts a spotlight on the shortcomings of a system. CANMAN13 brought this up in his post, too. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. And what's even more sad is the fact that this is the truth because there is only so much money to go around, and not every problem that's known about can be fixed. The "more sad" thing about that is when funds are redirected to address the shortcomings related to the latest tragedy, there's something somewhere else that's going to get short-changed. And whatever that system is, it's going to suffer, until some tragedy occurs there, and the cycle repeats.
Think of me what you will, I'm just tired of hearing about the latest HEMS crash and getting sick to my stomach waiting to find out if it's a friend. I feel and speak the same way about FD deaths. If we're not willing to learn from them and simply hold the up as "heroes" without examining their mistakes, then their death was in vain.
As I said at the beginning, I think the MSP has shown that it's willing to learn from the mistakes and take steps to address them. Whether they are the right steps or whether they will be successful, only time will tell. But as CANMAN13 pointed out, the MSP had a very good safety record. Not sure how good or bad it was compared to anyone else but it was still pretty good. But a good safety record doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement or that tragedy is impossible.
. I want to become a police officer eventually.