Air Rescue Paramedics

In response to “Elite Rescue Unit May Fall Victim as Sheriff Tries to Cut Spending,” June 11:

In the process of filming for our television show, we have flown with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Air Rescue Paramedics dozens of times over the past four years. From personal experience, I can tell you that every time that big old Sikorsky helicopter, known as Air 5, launches from Long Beach Airport en route to its base in Barley Flats, it is only a short matter of time until it is dispatched to do a job no other helicopter, no other organizations and no other group of pilots and paramedics can do.

Weekend after weekend, flight after flight, we have been with them as they saved lives. Virtually every weekend year round, the Los Angeles news media feature dramatic pictures and stories of absolutely unbelievable rescues as paramedics, doctors and nurses from the Sheriff’s Air Rescue risk their lives lowering themselves on a hoist cable over rugged mountain terrain to save the lives of Angelenos.

Anyone entrusted with cutting the county’s budget would be an absolute idiot to cut even a penny from Sheriff’s Air Rescue and yet they propose to ground the helicopters completely if $1.5 million is not found.

If someone really does make the decision to ground Air 5, they would be wise, as would the rest of us, to stay out of the mountains, deserts, lakes, islands, and beaches and to stay off the winding isolated roads of outer Los Angeles County because without Air 5, those areas will become deathtraps as help will take hours to get there by ground and the nearest trauma center will become hours away.

DAVE FORMAN

Executive Producer

“ON SCENE: Emergency Response”

Irvine