Flight Training - October 2014 - 18

AROUND THE PATCH

By Heather Baldwin

BOXES OF LIFE

ARIZONA PILOT GROUP IS OUT FOR BLOOD
DR. H.C. MCCLURE (left) and with Debbi Williams
and Courtney Tallis (far right).

T

he sun is still low over the mountains east of Phoenix when
Dr. H.C. "Mac" McClure takes off from Falcon Field in Mesa,
Arizona, en route to Flagstaff. On this mid-July morning, his
Cessna TR182 carries Mac in the left seat, me in the right, and,
in the back, two boxes of life. The boxes contain blood platelets,
likely destined for cancer or leukemia
patients. During the night, technicians at
United Blood Services/Arizona's (UBS) lab
in Phoenix ran tests to ensure the quality of
the donated platelets, then separated them
into individual units ready for transfusion.
With just a five-day shelf life from the time
the blood is donated, platelets have little
time to waste in travel. That's where Mac
comes in.
Mac is president of Flights for Life
(FFL), a group of roughly 140 pilots who
donate their time, airplanes, and fuel to
transport blood around the state. They
haul it in to the Scottsdale and Tempe labs
from blood drives outside the Phoenix
area. They also take the processed blood
out of Phoenix to outlying hospitals when
it is ready for the patients who need it.
This is no small effort. UBS operates
six fixed-site donor centers and about
12 mobile blood drives every day across

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Arizona. In a state that stretches 400
miles north to south and more than 300
miles east to west, FFL can cover these
vast distances in a fraction of the time it
would take a driver, quickly getting blood
to where it is needed at no cost to UBS. On
the day I accompany him, Mac is scheduled to fly three missions: two deliveries
and one pickup. It would take two or three
drivers the full day to accomplish what
Mac will do in about three flight hours.
We land in Flagstaff, and Mac leaves the
box of platelets on a wooden bench at the
FBO, where a courier will pick it up and
take it to the hospital. From Flagstaff, we
fly to Show Low to deliver the second box
to a waiting driver, and then to St. Johns
near the New Mexico border, where we
pick up five boxes destined for a Phoenixarea lab from a just-completed blood drive.
Last year, FFL pilots flew a total of
1,884 boxes of blood on 1,039 missions.

Most of those missions are scheduled in
advance, but not all. In Show Low, Mac's
phone buzzes with a text: UBS urgently
needs to get a blood product to the town
of Payson. Can an FFL pilot make the trip
immediately? These unscheduled flights
pop up every few days. The first pilot to
respond gets the flight; if no one responds,
UBS dispatches a driver.
One of McClure's most memorable
flights was one of these urgent missions.
On that trip, he was met at the destination
airport not by the regular courier but by
two people in scrubs, one of whom was
wringing her hands. Mac says his prop
had barely stopped turning when she ran
up and grabbed the box, thanked him,
then darted away. That moment, he says,
really drove home the importance of what
Flights for Life is doing. "I've done every
type of volunteer work you can name," he
says, "and nothing is as fulfilling as this
work because I know I'm saving lives."
The effort has had such an impact that
other states have begun to take notice.
UBS regional blood centers serve more
than 500 hospitals in 18 states, but no
state outside Arizona is supported by an
organization like FFL. That may soon
change. Mac has been approached by folks
in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado,
Utah, and several other states for his
recommendations on rallying local pilots
to create a state-level FFL. He foresees a
day when many states are able to move
lifesaving blood via a network of volunteer
pilots who want to use their airplanes for
more than punching holes in the sky or
traveling to the $500 hamburger.
We land uneventfully back in Mesa and
give the waiting UBS driver the five boxes
of whole blood from St. Johns. Within the
hour, the blood will be at the UBS labs to
begin processing. It's all just a routine day
in the life of an FFL pilot. Only, it isn't rou-
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