Cover_Jan 05 (Page 2) - The Parklander Magazine

Volunteer pilots help people in need
On The Wings Of Angels
By Lou Musmeci
A soldier stationed at Camp
LeJeune in North Carolina was recently
faced with a dilemma. His wife was
due to give birth within days, but she
was at home in the Florida Panhandle
and he was scheduled to be deployed
to Iraq within the week. A commercial
airline flight would be improbable—
if not impossible —to get him to both
commitments.
Pilot Tom Everham with Marilyn and Aaron.
Enter Angel Flight Southeast.
Angel Flight Southeast is a not-for-profit organization
in Leesburg that provides medical transport as well as
humanitarian missions to people in need. Pilots who have
their own airplanes volunteer to take individuals to their
urgent destination at no cost.
“All pilots are just guys like you and me who happen to
own a plane and love to fly and want to give back to the community,”
said Deborah Deal, CEO of Angel Flight Southeast.
“The pilots pay for all fuel, maintenance and hangars for the
planes. An average mission costs between $500 and $1,200 of
out of pocket expenses for the pilot.”
Angel Flight Southeast covers Florida, South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. South Florida airports
used include the Boca Raton Airport, Fort Lauderdale
Executive Airport, North Palm Beach County General
Aviation Airport in West Palm Beach and the North Perry
Airport in Hollywood. In 2003, Angel Flight Southeast ran
1,359 flights. Throughout the country, more than 10,000 missions
By Warren Marmorstein
were performed.
“We scheduled twice as many because for every mission
that gets flown you have to schedule two,” Deal said. “Fifty
percent of missions get cancelled because either a patient gets
sick, dies or finds another way to the hospital or their physician
said they are not ready to fly.”
Scheduling missions can often times be taxing. At times it
can take up to 50 phone calls to schedule a mission.
“It could be a rural area where we don’t have pilots,” said
Sheri Hutchinson, director of operations for Angel Flight
Southeast. “But we do have a tremendous base of pilots in
Broward and Miami-Dade counties.”
Scheduling flights for transplant patients is the most
difficult, Deal said, because “we would assign three or four
pilots from that area who agree to drop everything to fly a
patient in the middle of the night should someone die and
there is an organ that is usable.
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U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Lee O'Connor, left, was flown home
to the Panhandle to see his new baby. Grandpa is holding the baby.
the PARKLANDER
“When organs become available,
many through automobile accidents,
the potential recipient has to wait for
the hospital to declare the person
dead,” Deal said. “Each organ has a
different time-frame, but we provide
the emergency last- minute flights.”
Deal said everyone that has used
Angel Flight Southeast has given the
organization positive feedback, but
there is a part of the process that some
people may have been apprehensive
about at the onset.
“Sometimes people are a little leery flying in a small plane
for the first time,” Deal said. “They’re a little apprehensive,
but after they do, they love it. We save them so much in
money, hassle and time. We don’t fly in bad weather where it
may be scary for them.”
Deal and Hutchinson say that their experience with Angel
Flight Southeast gives them great personal satisfaction.
“I worked for corporate America for 15 years and words
cannot describe the rewarding feeling I get from Angel Flight
Southeast every day,” Hutchinson said. “The people and
pilots are wonderful. They are true angels.”
Angel Flight Southeast can be reached at 352-326-0761 or
by visiting www.angelflightse.com. ● P
Smart Money’s On Long-Term Coverage
Economics these days dictate that patients be discharged
from hospitals “quicker and sicker.”
More than 60 percent of patients require continuing care and
44 percent are between the ages of 18 to 64. The continuing care
is to help with the patient’s daily activities (eating, dressing,
bathing, transferring and continence) until recovery. Individuals
with cognitive impairment or chronic conditions may require
longer term care. This care may also be rehabilitative in nature,
helping someone regain function lost as a result of an injury or
illness. For many elderly Americans the continuance of care is
typically in a nursing home.
The costs of continuing care are not covered by any third
party payor (not major medical or disability insurance, nor by the
U.S. government for retirees), but by the patient and paid from
income, assets or through a long-term care/home health care
policy. With current costs ranging from $100 to $250 per day
depending on the level of care and recovery periods that could
last for a lifetime, every individual must have a plan to protect
against what could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars
in needed care.
Individuals without established plans may need to deplete
their retirement savings or have loved ones alter their lives to
have the patient come live with them, or otherwise care for the
patient through frequent visits to the patient’s home. This can be
an overwhelming burden on families. Owning a comprehensive
long-term/home health care insurance policy is clearly the best
protection.
Here are important factors to consider:
1. Don’t Assume You Have This Coverage — Longterm/home
health care is not covered by health insurance or
disability policies. Medicare, Medicare supplements and HMO’s
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