Where I've been and those I've shot along the way.

Coast Guard Helicopter 6575. Photography by Vernon T. Williams.

That moment between calm and fury, when the APU has broken the evening’s silence but before the engines have started.  In a moment the sound will ramp up to a scream and the main rotor will turn, slowly at first but with gathering ferocity until it is beating the air into submission.  As pilot and co-pilot run through the startup checklist the crewman listens for items that require his response, but they are relatively few and his mind wanders over what he knows about the mission ahead.  In this case it’s hoisting a suspected heart-attack victim from a cruise ship out in the Gulf.  It’s a procedure he’s gone through dozens of times, both operationally and in drills, but not one he takes lightly.  He projects himself forward in time, the helicopter already in a slow hover over stern of the cruise ship, its speed perfectly matched to that of the vessel below.  He envisions attaching the Stokes litter to the heavy stainless steel hook, guiding it out the door and down as he lowers it to the deck, all the time calling positional instructions to the pilot over the ICS.  He pictures the litter steadied by the ship’s crew, every passenger gathered at the railings above to watch the unscheduled show.  He feels the hoist button under his thumb and sees the crew working hurriedly below as the patient is loaded into the wire stretcher for the ride back up.  Standing here on the ramp he responds to another item on the checklist but a half hour ahead, in the cabin of the hovering aircraft, he is calling position to the pilot as he works the hoist to bring the occupied litter back up to the helicopter.  The helo slows to a stationary hover and allows the ship to pull away.

The engine start checklist now complete, the crewman tells the pilot that he’s going off ICS and disconnects long enough to stow the fire bottle next to the hangar.  As he walks quickly back to the running helo, his head low, the patient in his mind is now safely in the cabin.  He reconnects to the ICS.  Visualization and reality blend and in both he slides closed the door of the cabin.

“Pilot, radio.  Cabin secured and harness locked.  Let’s do this thing.”

But in his mind, it’s already done.