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Fly Zone Flapdoodle
Fly Zone Flapdoodle
The
residents surrounding St. John Hospital in Detroit are miffed because
helicopters are bringing injured patients to the hospital in life saving
journeys and the noise is disrupting the otherwise tranquil neighborhood. One of the homeowners even mentioned that “the noise of an approaching helicopter distracts him from watching
television in his front room.” Guess he
is not aware that reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” are available from the local
video store! Seriously, we’re talking
about life and death situations here so several minutes of a helicopter
delivering its precious cargo to the trauma center should not be a cause celebre! These neighborhood whiners should take a
lesson from our grade school nuns.
Anytime we heard a siren while in class, the nuns would ask us to pause
and say a prayer for whatever prompted the emergency. So the next time a helicopter flies over the
neighborhood, the residents should say a prayer of thanks that they themselves
are not in the helicopter! Short of that perhaps a meeting with the families
whose loved ones were transported in the helicopter in a life and death
situation would jolt these complainers into some sense of reality. Wouldn’t
that be an interesting meeting! In the
meantime, turn up the volume on the television!
Bill Kalmar
GP Right
9:29 am on Sunday, April 14, 2013
A little late in this response but I feel there is a lot of misinformation about the complaints about the helipad. Here are some highlights:
The hospital agreed to "fly neighborly" rules which make a huge difference in the disruption to the local residents but the pilots have not been following the rules.
Another frustration to those of in the neighborhood is we keep reading that there were only 4 or 6 flights since November. We had 4 flights in 1 week and I have witnessed at least 10 & these were only when I happened to be home so you know that there are more.
Finally, many people point out that these are life saving flights but if you look at the locations of hospitals that already have helipads around SE Michigan you would realize that no matter which direction they are coming from, these flights fly right past other facilities, many of which are not in the middle of a residential area. Given that fact, I would argue that these flights are to enhance St John's revenue and that the residents who purchased homes in the area are the ones that pay price in both quality of life and greatly diminished resale value of their homes. I don't know anybody who would have purchased a home so close to an active helipad, especially at the premium price that the Grosse Pointe designation commands.
If you take these factors into account, I think you can understand our frustration.