LIHU‘E — Thursday was a time to grieve for the Hawai‘i Life Flight Kaua‘i team and several dozen community members, who joined the Kaua‘i team in remembering the three victims of the Hawai‘i Life Flight N13GZ that lost contact with radar in waters between Maui and Hawai‘i Island on Thursday, Dec. 15.
The Kaua‘i event that took place at the Hawai‘i Life Flight crew house, located across from the Wilcox Medical Center Emergency Room, was part of similar remembrances taking place across the state, and even in other parts of the globe.
Representatives of different Kaua‘i first responders and the Wilcox Medical Center made up a greater portion of the lei pule as told by Kahu Jade Wai‘ale‘ale Battad, who described all first responders as belonging to the same ‘ohana, “and if we lose one, we all mourn the loss.”
An aunty, bearing a photograph on her smartphone during an invitation by the HLF Kaua‘i team, revealed a victim of the three that perished. Gabriel “Gabe” Camacho of Kailua, O‘ahu, is a father of three and became a paramedic after he needed a medical evacuation flight. Courtney Parry of Kihei, Maui, was a nurse aboard the flight that departed from Kahului Airport on Maui. The pilot’s name has not been released.
“United together, we will simultaneously honor the crew so that their families feel the support of not only the global medical response family, but the air medical community, and all the communities across the country,” states the Hawai‘i Life Flight invitation to the lei pule.
At 5:52 p.m., as the holiday lights flashed on in the Wilcox parking lot fronting Kuhio Highway and the sun struggled to maintain its glow in the cold night air, the lei pule participants observed three minutes of silence — one minute for each of the three crew members that never made it home. At 5:55 p.m., the designated sunset time, the group wrapped up by gathering in a circle with hands held and sang “Hawai‘i Aloha.”
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
