Posted on 05/14/2007 10:14:02 AM PDT by RDTF
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Twenty years ago a North Dakota National Guard fighter jet scrambled with a cooler containing an infant heart for a 5-month-old boy in California. The heart still beats inside Andrew De La Pena, who's now a student at Loyola University in New Orleans. He will be in Fargo this week with his parents. They'll meet the anonymous family whose decision to donate their infant's organs helped De La Pena live. "I have often wondered what happened and if he's OK," said Col. Bob Becklund, who flew the F-4. "And to hear now that he's survived all this and not only that but he's doing great, to be part of that, I'll say is very neat."
The families will not be available for interviews until a Tuesday news conference, said Rebecca Ousley, a spokeswoman for LifeSource, a St. Paul-based nonprofit that manages and promotes organ and tissue donation. The De La Pena family was expected to stay in Fargo through Wednesday, she said.
The dramatic flight of Andrew's heart unfolded just before Christmas 1986. The Stanford surgical team had boarded the Lear jet at Hector International Airport with the heart, but the jet's second engine wouldn't work. Meanwhile, then-Gov. George Sinner was in the governor's residence. He had shut off the phone in his room, so his son-in-law answered when someone called with an urgent request. "Here was this frantic doctor calling from Fargo, saying they need a fast airplane pronto," Sinner said. Sinner offered a Citation, a business jet, from the University of North Dakota. It wasn't fast enough. "Suddenly I realized we've got F-4s sitting there with crews," he said. At that time, the National Guard's 119th Wing's F-4 Phantoms were on alert, meaning a jet was ready to go.
(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...
Save a Life.
Sign your donor card today!
The F4 is proof that with big enough engines attached, you can get a brick to fly.
F-4 Phantom
Proof that if you put a big enough engine on a brick, it will fly.
To all you fighter jocks out there ... thanks for the air cover from a ground pounder.
According to Terry McAuliffe and John Kerry, when George Bush was sitting alert he was dodging the draft.
Good story.
While in Vietnam, I had the opportunity to be on an operation where we needed air support and the pilots of those F 4’s did an outstanding job of getting us the help we needed. In fact one came in so low that his after burners blew dust and debris over us on his last run...these guys and chopper pilots are very high on my list of real hero’s.
Meadow Muffin
ping
You’re welcome!
The United States Military....the same resources used to blow the s*%t out of bad guys used to save a little baby.
The term “gentle giant” comes to mind.
Ever see an F-4 land on a carrier?..Scary, very scary..
Double freakin’ Ugly. Man, I love that airplane. I saw an F-4F from the German air force put on a great show in the mid-90s at Dayton. Big, ugly, and loud as hell, it was the highlight of the show until the Thunderbirds showed up.
}:-)4
The F-4 has got to be the most sinister-lookin’ thing we’ve ever put in the air. You take a full ‘rack’ of under-wing armament, add swept up wingtips, downward angled h-stabs, and a brace of afterburning J79’s torching out the back end...
Mister, that’s one WICKED aircraft.
And, yes, I imagine getting it down onto the deck of a carrier would be a considerable adventure. For sure everyone from stem to stern would know you’d arrived.
My step-dad worked on that plane when he was maintaining avionics on the F4’s in Fargo. Neat story.
When it absolutely, positively has to be there!
Mach 2 gives you quite an advantage...
At least for a short period of time...
I forgot how long it takes to drain one of those things...
I know the F-14 needed go-go juice in mass quantities after having this sort of fun...
F-4’s were juuuust before my time...
btt
WOOOW; What a story. It made my day
True. But they shoulda put a gun on it earlier for those knife fighting in close dogfights over N. Vietnam with Mig-17’s and Mig-21’s. The failure rate of those early Sparrow radar guided missles was over 25%
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.