Something about the history was familiar

Doctor and patient are neighbors 16 years after helicopter crash in Alaska

By RILEE LARSEN / For the Pilot

Sixteen years after they first met under unusual circumstances 1,500 miles away in Juneau, Alaska, Larry Larsen and Rod Vaught now live just a few short miles away from each other in the Flathead Valley.

The logger and the doctor first met after a tragic helicopter accident in Alaska's remote timberlands. For Larsen, it spelled the end to the highlight of his career working in the woods.

"Alaska was the big adventure. We always wanted to go but never quite made it, and then the logging industry was a good excuse," Larsen recalled.

After nearly 20 years of dreaming, Larsen's vision of a life in Alaska finally started falling together by 1989. After living and logging in Idaho, Oregon and Montana, where he and his wife Liz raised their three children in Kalispell, the logging industry provided an opportunity to head north.

Larsen went to work for a few outfits before joining RMH Aero Logging, a helicopter-logging company based out of Ketchikan. He lived in the Natsahuni logging camp on Prince of Wales Island and logged the surrounding areas.

In his fourth year in Alaska, it was time for Liz to join him. On Feb. 22, 1992, Liz and their daughter Yvonne arrived from Montana. The next day, Larsen set off to work.

After a full day of logging in rain and wet snow, Larsen and two others went to the heliport, an area in the woods cleared out for helicopters to land. In wet weather, helicopter rotors create static electricity, so the loggers were trained to use a long stick and lean it against the landing strut to ground the aircraft.

That day, however, a temporary pilot arrived an hour late with a cable tied to the helicopter to ground it upon landing.

"We were bewildered, I almost didn't get on with the cable there," Larsen said, "It's very illegal and dangerous — the cable can fly around in the wind. But I thought, 'What the heck?' We were freezing cold and soaking wet, so I decided to get on board anyway."

Lucky to be alive

Eleven people were on board heading back to camp when they were caught in a violent storm.

"The helicopter was bouncing all over the sky," Larsen said. "The loose cable flew up, hit and broke the rotor, which threw the cable back and knocked the tail rotor completely off. We flew into the hillside."

Most people on board were ejected head-first upon impact, but because of his grip on a strap handle inside the helicopter, Larsen landed feet-first.

"When I came to, I couldn't move," he said. "I used my arms to lift my head and look around. I was sitting looking at all of my dead friends in a pile in front of me. It's not a thing you want to sit and look at for two hours, and it's not a thing you forget. I still miss them a lot."

Except for the sound of dripping snow hissing on the engine, the scene was completely silent. Fortunately, there was little fuel in the helicopter, so there was no explosion or significant fire.

"One of the survivors, Mike Hull, was able to walk when he came to, and he called for help with the radio," Larsen said. "I told him where we were because I was watching out the window before the wreck."

Two to three hours went by before help arrived. Fortunately, the crash site was near a large gravel pit where rescue helicopters could land.

"Coast Guard helicopters flew us right to the parking lot of a hospital in Juneau," Larsen said. "I was absolutely petrified from having just wrecked in one, but it helped me stay awake, which was good."

Larsen had broken nearly everything but his right leg. His back was broken in nine places, his neck, ribs, elbows and fingers were broken, his heels were shattered from landing on them, and a lung was punctured.

"I could hardly breathe. If I hadn't stayed awake, I don't think I would have kept breathing," he said, "In the emergency room, I remember two doctors bending over me talking about which ribs to pierce through to relieve the pressure from the punctured lung. They made an incision, and I remember red splattering the wall, taking a huge breath, and then I passed out."

One of life's coincidences

One of the doctors who saved Larsen's life now works in the emergency room at North Valley Hospital. Dr. Rod Vaught lived in Sitka, Alaska, from 1980 to 1992. He later moved to the Flathead to be close to family and because of lasting memories from time spent in the Flathead as a medical student.

Years after the accident, when Larsen went to North Valley Hospital for a non-emergency case, Vaught was sent to evaluate the patient.

"I went in and asked him about his medical history," Vaught said. "We didn't recognize each other at first, but something about the history seemed familiar, with the trauma and the accident."

Later, Vaught returned to Larsen's room.

"He was looking at me funny, and I was looking at him funny, and he said, 'It's you,'" Vaught recalled. "We started talking and realized how we knew each other, and then we figured out that my daughter (Lainey Vaught) and his granddaughter (Rilee Larsen) were good friends."

Slow recovery

Immediately after the wreck, officials had trouble locating Liz Larsen because she had just arrived from Montana. Her husband was sent by airplane from Juneau to Harborview Hospital, in Seattle, and Liz followed as soon as possible, arriving at the hospital the next morning.

After nearly two weeks in Seattle, Liz and Larry returned to Montana. They settled for a time in Missoula so Larry could see specialists there. For six months, he was confined in a neck-to-hip body cast, and two months later, he was healed enough to return to Kalispell.

"I got up everyday and went to therapy," he said. "I learned to hate that, but by the time I was done, I was in great shape. Those guys did a good job of getting me back."

It took a full year of therapy and operations to repair damages, and after about five years, Larry was fully restored to health.

The injuries caused by the crash still affect Larry, however — with seven fused vertebrae, he can't bend his back, and the shoulder that he used to hold onto the helicopter handle with is a constant bother.

"I think about it everyday," he said. "It goes through your mind as part of daily life. I think it's part of how you cope with the loss."

Larsen, who's now 63, is still in touch with the other loggers who survived. Mike Hull was the only one able to continue logging.

"It's hard to not do what you've always enjoyed, but we moved on," said Larsen, who now stays occupied at the Whitefish Liquor Store, owned by Liz, and their new RV park, "You can always move on by choice. We haven't let any grass grow under our feet, we keep busy — but I still like logging the best."

If not for the accident Larsen believes that he would still be living in Alaska, for at least part of the year, and would probably still be logging.

"I think it's nice to have something you enjoy doing to finish out your years. I still haven't decided what that's going to be for me," Larry said. "But now, I can't think of any place else I'd like to live other than right here. It's just too nice. It's perfect for me, and my family is all here."