NA PALI COAST — For the most part, paying customers don’t really mind when a scheduled tour is rerouted in order to accommodate rescue of an injured hiker, said Ken D’Attilio, owner and pilot of Inter-Island Helicopters. One of Tuesday’s
NA PALI COAST — For the most part, paying customers don’t really mind when a scheduled tour is rerouted in order to accommodate rescue of an injured hiker, said Ken D’Attilio, owner and pilot of Inter-Island Helicopters.
One of Tuesday’s tours included an unscheduled landing in Hanakoa Valley after hikers using a shirt attached to a long stick flagged down D’Attilio to alert him to an injured hiker.
It was “very windy” and D’Attilio had just spun his craft around to give visitors on the opposite side of the helicopter picture-perfect views of the panoramic canyon when he noticed two men flagging him down, he said in an interview.
He set the craft down and didn’t initially see anyone around when people came out of the trees near the landing pad to let him know of a hiker, Hayley Diamond of Berkeley, Calif., who had a severe ankle injury and needed a lift out of the valley.
D’Attilio explained to Diamond that he needed to take his customers back to Port Allen Airport (Burns Field), pick up some fuel, pick up a rescue specialist in Lihu‘e, then return for her.
That meant he also had to cancel two tours also scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, with some of the visitors unable to reschedule because they were leaving the island, he said.
“They’re all very good about it,” he said of customers who get to be part of rescue efforts, like those on board Tuesday and those who need to be reaccommodated or canceled when rescue situations arise.
When D’Attilio and his passengers left Hanakoa to head back to Port Allen, he radioed the situation to Kaua‘i Police Department dispatch when he reached an area near Ke‘e Beach at Ha‘ena, took the passengers back to Port Allen, added some fuel, picked up a Kaua‘i Fire Department rescue specialist at the North Vidinha Soccer Fields, then made it back to Hanakoa.
He dropped Diamond at Princeville Airport, where the American Medical Response ambulance was waiting to take her to Wilcox Memorial Hospital, where she was treated.
