Gilroy
– Ryan O’Connor can’t walk, and Keith Malinao can’t talk, but
both had been imagining for a long time what it would be like to
fly through the sky in a helicopter.
Now they know all about the pre-flight jitters, the queasy
feeling in one’s stomach as the chopper leaves the ground, the awe
of seeing the South Valley landscape unfold below.
Gilroy – Ryan O’Connor can’t walk, and Keith Malinao can’t talk, but both had been imagining for a long time what it would be like to fly through the sky in a helicopter.
Now they know all about the pre-flight jitters, the queasy feeling in one’s stomach as the chopper leaves the ground, the awe of seeing the South Valley landscape unfold below. On Thursday, the CALSTAR air ambulance staff took Ryan and Keith on a pair of special liftoffs from their base at Saint Louise Regional Hospital.
“It was kind of scary,” Ryan, 12, said after it was over. He never felt nauseated, he said, “but it was kind of dizzy going up.”
Keith couldn’t speak for himself, but his mother, Liz, said he was completely calm throughout the short flight.
“He just looked out the window the whole time, didn’t want to be bothered with mom,” she said.
Keith is 20, but he has the mentality of a 3- or 4-year-old, according to his mother. A battery of illnesses has besieged the young Gilroy man since his birth, according to City Councilman Bob Dillon, Keith’s godfather and a friend of the family.
“He’s had a hard go of it,” Dillon said. “He spent a month in the hospital in December.”
Keith had never even seen a helicopter before Thursday, but flying in an airplane is one of his favorite things in the world. He periodically takes off with a local pilot from South County Airport in San Martin.
“Show mom how you fly,” Liz Malinao said Thursday. Keith quietly flapped his arms and smiled.
Although Ryan gets around in a wheelchair, he otherwise comes across as a typical seventh-grader. He likes playing video and board games and swimming, but duchennes, a form of muscular dystrophy, has been attacking his muscles since he was born. There is no cure at present, but his parents are nervously hoping stem cell research will provide one within the next few years.
Ryan lives in Newark, but he comes to Gilroy every other weekend to stay with his dad, Chris O’Connor, and stepmother, Terri Stinson. Each of those visits requires a drive by Saint Louise, and every time, Ryan asks about the CALSTAR helicopter.
“He loves it, and if it’s about to take off, he wants to stop and watch it,” Stinson said.
Ryan showed up Thursday expecting to only get a tour of the helicopter and was surprised, excited and nervous to get a flight as well. Now he’ll have a much better story to tell his friends, he said.
It happened like this. In late July, David Rubcic cut his arm at his home – next-door to Ryan’s dad and stepmom – and was flown by CALSTAR to a San Jose trauma center. When Ryan’s parents found out, they mentioned Ryan’s CALSTAR fascination to Rubcic and his wife, Kristi Abrams, a city traffic engineer. Abrams, in turn, asked CALSTAR board member Chris Coté if Ryan could get a tour. Coté went beyond the request and arranged for a liftoff, just in time for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s annual Labor Day telethon this weekend.
As part of the event, Coté invited city councilmen to go up as well. Dillon, upon hearing Coté’s phone message, decided he had been on enough helicopters for a lifetime in the Vietnam War, in which he served as a flight medic. He figured Keith could take his place.
“He’d get a big kick out of it,” Dillon said. “I’ve been there.”
And though Keith couldn’t say so, his smile showed he clearly enjoyed the experience.
