Duty pilot Jeremy Bruce checks the latest new technology thermal imaging binoculars at the Hawke's Bay Rescue Helicopter base in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
Duty pilot Jeremy Bruce checks the latest new technology thermal imaging binoculars at the Hawke's Bay Rescue Helicopter base in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
After 10 years with the Lowe Corporation Hawke's Bay Rescue Helicopter Service, pilot Jeremy Bruce still gets quiet about the toughest missions he's flown invariably involving tragedy or trauma.
Unsurprisingly, he prefers to talk more about the successes and flying the choppers, something that's pretty much been with himmost of his life. So much so it's easy to imagine him chatting along with Harvey the Helicopter back in the day.
Before his time, of course, but, for those who don't remember, Harvey the Helicopter was a children's radio story of well over half-a-century ago, when children's imaginations were also tested by such other others as Flick the Little Fire Engine, Billy the Bus, and Little Toot.
Bruce's engagement was far more real, forming the back-story to what is nominally a third of about 400 missions flown by the service's three crews each year, a 24/7 and 365 days a year lifeline across the motu, but needing about $1.3 million a year from fundraising in addition to its government funding.
When contacted by Hawke's Bay Today last week, Bruce was on the regular shift – 24 hours a day on call, for three days - probably not what he expected when he took to flying and got his qualifications at aviation training school in Nelson 14 years ago. He had attended Gisborne Boys' High School then Massey University to do a diploma in Horticulture.
He had followed in the footsteps of his dad, who had been a vineyard manager for 40 years, and spent time in the industry in New Zealand, Australia and California. He was motivated to change by seeing two mates he had grown up with getting into the helicopter industry.
Jeremy Bruce pictured in the hangar in 2012. Photo / NZME
"It was a dream," he says, as he recalls flying into places some people could only imagine as he clocked up the hours in the air. "It was now or never."
He loves the flying, just as much as when he was growing up in Gisborne and got to fly with his mate's dad who owned a helicopter.
It wasn't the typical day, partly because there isn't a typical day. Unpredictability is one of the attractions of the specific role, ranging from rescue missions to hospital transfers.
"You may sit in the hangar all day and do nothing," he said. "There is no such thing a typical day, it's very unpredictable but over a year it probably averages out the same. I love the unpredictability of it."
Helicopter rescue in Hawke's Bay goes back over 50 years to the use of mainly commercial helicopters used in agricultural work.
Without cabin facilities stretchers and patients were strapped to the skids of aircraft for open-air flying to the nearest-possible ambulance staging point, to be taken to hospital by road.
The first Rescue Helicopter service in New Zealand was launched on Auckland's west coast in 1971 but it was not until 1984 that a similar service was established in Hawke's Bay, also focusing on the coast.
In 1985 a CAA-approved helicopter pad was completed at the Hastings Hospital (now named the Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Hospital), and a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, owned by Wanganui Aero Works, was used for the rescues and in 1989 the machine was sold to Mike Groome, of Te Onepu Helicopters, and continued doing part-time rescue work.
As time passed the operation would be associated with the name of meat company Lowe Walker and then the wider Lowe Corporation of benefactor Graeme Lowe, who died in 2012.
The service is now part of a network, which can involved being called to other regions depending on circumstances of the day.
Bruce is settled for now, with family goals in hand, but there is still room for dreams. "Who knows what in 10 years' time," he says. "I would love to fly in a Black Hawk."
* Hawke's Bay Today and The Hits Hawke's Bay are now official charity partners of the Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter. The helicopter is available 24/7, 365 days a year and no one ever pays to use the service. If you are not a current supporter please consider supporting this life-saving service.
