Bedminster man offers gift of flight

3/9/06

BEDMINSTER -- Every few weeks, Jim Christie gets an e-mail from Angel Flight, and sees when patients across the Northeast need to get from one hospital to another. As often as he can, he hits "reply" and arranges to fly.Christie gasses up his Piper Saratoga and takes off from Somerset Air Service, headed to pick up the patient and then fly to New York, Boston, or wherever the patient needs to go.

"I got involved with them in 1999, and I'd heard of them through the AOPA and I thought it was a wonderful thing," said the Bedminster resident. "The simple truth is, we help people in need."

Angel Flight NE handles flights for treatment in nine states and logs 50 missions each week. A network of 800 volunteer pilots flew over 5,000 patients last year, and Christie is one of them.

Often, patients live in more rural areas, and are flown to specialty treatment centers such as Shriners Hospital in Boston, where their care is provided free.

Christie has flown patients from Vermont, the Appalachians in New York, and to Boston, all on his own dime. Pilots pay for their own fuel, and patients fly free. The organization gives the pilots teddy bears and coloring books for the young patients, but otherwise, pilots handle the costs.

Sometimes patients will offer money, but Christie said he tells them to spend it on other things. Other times, airport owners will give him a discount on fuel.

"One time, I flew in to pick up a little girl, and filled up the plane. The airport owner said, 'It's on me. Go, get out of here,'" Christie said.

Air traffic controllers at the major airports clear the runways when Angel Flight planes radio in.

"If you're Angel flight, it's like Moses parting the waters," Christie said, though in other circumstances, his single-engine plane wouldn't be too welcome at Logan International Airport.

"It's a household name in the Boston area, but not so much here," Christie said. "It's been a Boston-based organization, and we've often said it needs more of a presence in the New York metropolitan area."

To raise the organization's profile, Christie, Far Hills resident John Rochelle, and former Bedminster Mayor Amey Mesko have put together a cocktail reception to be held on April 30 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Fiddlers Elbow Country Club. The reception, originally scheduled for early February, was snowed out. Called "A Wing and a Heart," the reception will feature the art of Randy Loubier, an artist that was inspired to paint because of Angel Flight.

That inspiration is not a unique feeling.

"It's humbling to do one of these flights, especially children. I've seen lots of children with awful ailments and burns," Christie said. "You have a bad day, and then you see what some other people are going through, and it puts it into perspective."

Patients need to be medically stable to fly, and a doctor has to sign off on the flight. Though he's had a patient with an oxygen tank aboard, Angel Flight only transports patients who can take care of themselves.

"If I've agreed to a mission and my plane is operating properly -- and the weather cooperates -- we fly," he said. "There are a lot of folks in need, typically people who need chemo, or burn victims."

ALLISON ELYSE GUALTIERI
Staff Writer