At Piedmont regional airport, the waiting room was full, the ground ambulance was on the tarmac, and all eyes were on the runway. Dewey was coming home! The 84-year-old father and grandfather from Key West, Fla., was due to land at 5:30 p.m. Air Compassion East arranged the flight to Norfolk where the partially paralyzed man would be staying with his daughter Pat until a bed at Norfolk General hospital in Virginia could be found.

Dewey, a Navy veteran, was in Key West closing out his affairs during the process of moving from Florida to Norfolk when he developed intense shoulder pain. He sought help at a local hospital and was admitted, then suddenly developed a fever and a blood infection. “By the time we got there,” said another daughter, Diane, “he was wearing a diaper, was incoherent and on a ventilator. Something had gone wrong.”

Air Compassion worked for weeks to find an economical air ambulance and coordinate the flight in light of an endless round of delays. Finally, on July 8, a Cessna 340 air ambulance landed at the airport and Dewey was safely transported by bed board and stretcher to the waiting ground ambulance and his loving children and grandchildren.