Lost in the line of duty

I was going through some of my work from the past year and I revisited an amazing image. I was shooting for the Benefis Hospital in Great Falls in September. It was late in the evening. I was up about 30 feet in the air on a swaying scissor lift, trying to stay perfectly still while making long exposures of their new hospital addition. A noise caught my ear. It was the sound of helicopter blades in the wind. One of the hospital’s Mercy Flight aircraft rising from behind the building. I picked up my camera, still attached to the tripod and followed it through the air. I got one exposure! “A lucky grab” I thought. Then my mind went back several years when I read the heart saddening story of the crash of one of their Mercy Flights. Pilot, nurse and paramedic, they all died enroute to pickup a patient in Bozeman.

So this is my small way to pay tribute to these folks that didn’t even give it a second thought to put their life on the line for another. They go about their selfless work and nobody really pays much attention except those that have had the benefit of their fine service.

For this I am grateful. I say THANK YOU to these three that gave everything, and many others out there, still hard at work. You’re amazing!