June 24th, 2020.

This piece had been written for a long time, with massive hesitation to release I do so with the end goal being ultimate unity, Truth, and humans doing what is called upon them – with all glory to God.

I still can’t talk about this in any detail without choking up. I am not one for rewards, not one for being noticed. This is something that, when I talked to the press initially, I decided is needed at this time, communities helping each other, setting aside political views as well as personal to help a fellow person(s).

In a moment of ultimate stress, chaos, and decisive action, the community, putting aside political views or any assumptions, people who did not know each other, came together and helped those in need.

Storytime:

As if 2020 didn’t have enough to deal with, I was driving down a highway in the rural Pacific North West; listening to music; I looked down the mostly clear sun-beaten road to see a helicopter flying, kissing the telephone lines that lined the highway. Noticing this, I said to myself, “I wonder if it’s going to land in the farmland directly to my right?” After watching for what seemed to be minutes but ended up being seconds, I realized the helicopter was going down and fast.

I watched it spin not 20 feet from the ground before it slammed into the awaiting half-grown wheat farm.
I abruptly swerved my RAV4 onto a side road around one hundred yards away from the now smoking helicopter on the now chard ground.

I slammed my car in park, opened the door, grabbed my medical kit, and started sprinting to the crash.

Simultaneously, another individual named Kinzo Mihara was traveling the opposite way on the same highway. Kinzo was driving with his kids. He pulled his car into a ditch, one hundred yards away.

I started sprinting to the crash, pulled my cell phone out, dialed 911, and waited for the operator to answer. I grabbed my medical kit I keep in the car while it was ringing. Once I heard a voice, I cut them off yelling, “We have a helicopter down, we have a helicopter down”; I dropped the phone from my ear and focused on running as I saw others - standing on the side - who had their phones to their ear. I only assumed they were calling 911.

On the approach to the helicopter, I saw a little flame coming from the helicopter. I saw one of the passengers exit the helicopter, his clothes and skin on fire. Not fully like in the movies, however there was flame coming off of him. I ran to him, ordered him to get to the ground, and after he did not comply, I assisted with the effort to help put him out. While doing this, I saw Kinzo running to the other side of the helicopter. I told the victim I was on to run away and ran to the other side. This I do not remember, but He did not listen and came running with me and assisted in the following efforts, until I ordered him to get away again.

At this point – I have mentally blocked from my head. I have, to the best of my ability recounted what happened based on what I remember, and what I’ve been told happened.

Currently, there was a massive amount of fire in and on the helicopter.

Kinzo was working on getting the door open at this point. I ran to help him. The helicopter door was opened and, standing right there was another victim. A massive wave of fire and heat was released out from the internal of the helicopter.

I was maybe 5-10 feet behind Kinzo, and I felt it, later realizing it singed my upper leg and arms.

Kinzo reached in to pull the victim, who was on fire, out of the helicopter. At first attempt, he pulled off a layer of skin. Upon the second try, Kinzo got the victim out and passed him onto me; Explosions were popping inside the helicopter. I ordered the second victim on the ground, assisted him a bit in this process.

During this time, there was a growing flame and ten to fifteen explosions from the helicopter. All of these were smaller sounding. After talking with a few officials, I learned later that the fuel tanks were the thing on fire. One of the inspectors said to me, “You shouldn’t be here; no one understands why it didn’t fully explode when you were there.”

This is hard for me to wrap my head around – and it was the first time I seriously considered that death during that incident was an option.

We got the second victim, mostly fire-free, before we started running away from the exploding helicopter. There was a distinct explosion that was louder that happened when we were further away. Throwing some debris around.

It was like herding cats. Both men, impressively, were able to walk out but were “out to lunch” and were clearly in a state of shock.

We corralled them to a safe distance away from the helicopter on the edge of the highway.

I started providing aid to them while others came running up to help. Most noticeably, a CNA who wore blue scrubs as well as others who checked on us.

I treaded them for shock and burns and prepared for CPR as I knew that it would happen fast when they took a turn. I assigned the CNA one of the victims, told her to keep me informed on the man’s condition, and I took the other.

We waited what seemed like hours for the ambulance to arrive; however, realistically, it was around seven to ten minutes.

Although I have been told this is an amazing story, there is more to it.

Community coming together to help those in need.

Our world is at a point where we need positivity, and we need to be reminded that we as humans are good at our core—our stories matter.

Tragically one of the victims ended up passing away.

The other was able to, after many surgeries, return to work and begin to live life again.

What is needed to gleam from this story is that in a moment of ultimate stress, chaos, and decisive action, the community, putting aside political views or any assumptions people who did not know each other, came together and helped those in need. There are countless stories like this out there – simply people helping others, this is just one that I am qualified tell.

Again, I do not write this for recognition, or anything of the sorts, but as a method to healing as well as a means to tell those who want to know, who long to understand what happened, to tell them as talking about it in person is simply, currently not a viable option. It is by Gods grace that all of the rescuers, the people who came to help render aid, and those that helped the families through this hard time were around.

As unpersonal as this is please respectfully take this as a personal conversation with me and you. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you, and would do anything for you. What I’ve learned from this event, reach out when you need help even if you don’t think you need it.

I had forgotten about this incident until I got a phone call about this late January 2021. It was the moment I was talking on the phone that I realized that I wasn’t in the clear. I texted as many people as I could trying to seek help, and those of you I reached out to, you proved my theory; we as humans are good at our core.

I thank you.

Matt