“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” said Hawkins finally, “we can’t take off in this. We’d be breaking federal regulations. And we’d be putting people at risk. You and your husband. Dr. Brockton. The flight crews. People on the ground, if we crashed. We can’t take off in these conditions.”
Through the background hiss on the radio came the sound of ragged breaths. “Of course. I understand. Forgive me. Forgive me for being selfish.”
Across the gurney from me, the nurse removed her helmet and mask. Bending forward, she buried her face in her hands and wept.
I heard a long, shuddering breath, then Carmen’s voice, practically a whisper, hypnotic and incantatory in its cadence. At first I couldn’t make it out, but soon I realized she was speaking in Spanish.“Ave María, llena eres de gracia…” She was praying, I realized, and I recognized the prayer: “Hail Mary, full of grace…”
Suddenly the helicopter was buffeted by a ferocious gust of wind. The aircraft shuddered and rocked, and then I felt one skid lift off the pad as the wind swirled beneath the rotor from one side and flipped upward. “JesusChrist, ” said the pilot, “hold on,” and with that we were in the air. It wasn’t that the helicopter had lifted off; it was more that it had been ripped from the pad. The aircraft lurched and bucked, and the flight nurse and I grabbed for the handrails of the gurney and the vertical bars attached to the sides of the cabin. The outside world had vanished, as thoroughly as if the windows had been draped with white blankets. The helicopter slammed and lurched and whipped like a rat being shaken by a terrier. Finally the turbulence eased and the aircraft seemed to level off, or at least to find a reasonably stable zone of cloud. I heard a loud exhalation through the headset, and the pilot’s voice—shaken but relieved—said, “Y’all okay back there?”
The nurse was tugging her helmet back onto her head. I was about to say that we were fine when an agitated voice cut in. “LifeStar One, LifeStar One, this is Flight Control, do you read?”
“Control, LifeStar One reading you loud and clear.”
“What the hell, Hawk?” The agitation in the controller’s voice had been replaced by a mixture of relief and anger—the mixture a parent’s voice tended to have when a small son or daughter narrowly but successfully dodged danger. “Damn it, Hawk, what the bloody hell are you doing taking off in these conditions? This might cost you your job. Maybe your license, too.”
“Look, here’s what happened,” began Hawkins.
“What happened,” broke in Wimberly, “was the strangest damn thing. All of a sudden this hole opened up in the ceiling.”
“Oh, bullshit,” spat the controller. “You stay out of this, Wimby.”
“No kidding, a hole,” insisted Wimberly. “Four hundred, maybe five hundred feet high. Three, four miles visibility. I can’t believe you didn’t see it.” The flight nurse and I looked at each other. She rolled her eyes and shook her head dramatically:No way. I began to catch on to what the second pilot was doing. “It was amazing,” he said. “Hawk, how’s the ride up there?”
“The ride’s good,” Hawkins said. “We’re just coming out on top at seven thousand feet. Beautiful up here.” He paused. “I don’t suppose that hole’s still open down there, is it, Wimby?”
“Say again?”
“Any chance that hole’s still open?”
I held my breath.
“I’ll be damned,” said Wimberly slowly. “Sure enough, still is. LifeStar Two’s departing.” His voice ratcheted up half an octave and a dozen decibels as he said it.“Whoa,” he added after a moment, “that was interesting.”
The flight controller radioed again, and I pictured him scanning the rulebook to see how many regulations the pilots had violated. This time, though, his voice seemed to contain concern and a touch of admiration.
“Wimby, did you make it up through that…uh, hole in the sky okay?” The nurse grinned at me.
“Sure did,” he said. “Piece of cake. LifeStar Two’s climbing to seven thousand.” His voice had switched back to the polished smoothness of the professional pilot, though I thought I detected a big dose of relief and a slight hint of swagger underneath.
“Have a safe flight,” said the controller. “You guys must have friends up there.”