Lifeguard helicopter crash claims three

The crash of a Lifeguard medical transport helicopter in December of 1986 near the Pendleton airport after the chopper was placed in a holding pattern for 20 minutes took the lives of three local crew members.

The nearly new Bell 206 L-3 helicopter was purchased by Lifeguard Medical Transport in June of 1986 at a cost of $500,000. The aircraft had more horsepower, and several other features adding convenience for crew and patients, than the rented helicopter it replaced. Its crew, including pilot Freddie Marshal Davis, 37, of Pendleton, James Borgman, 50, registered nurse, of Walla Walla, and Nancy Neerenberg, 37, paramedic, of Hermiston, were returning from a flight to Portland and had been waiting for clearance to land at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton for 20 minutes the afternoon of December 3, 1986, when Davis contacted the FAA's Seattle Center, which handled air dispatch for the area, saying he was encountering adverse weather conditions and needed to land. When the tower responded for more information to determine the helicopter's exact position, they lost contact with the craft.

At the time, the Pendleton airport did not have an operational air traffic control tower; it was shut down during the summer due to liability insurance issues. The FAA's spokesman said that having an operational tower in Pendleton would not have averted the crash, however.

Air traffic controllers said their last contact with the helicopter, reportedly a mayday call, was received at 5:32 p.m. A short time later, a Umatilla resident monitoring a CB radio reportedly overheard a statement about a helicopter running out of fuel. Several planes were called to make an aerial search, but the low cloud ceiling prevented the pilots from getting into the air. Farmers in the Despain Gulch area began their own unofficial searches along the farm roads in the area around 8 p.m.

It was hours later when search parties headed up by the Umatilla County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police were dropped along Interstate 84 west of Pendleton to begin searching on foot for the wreckage of the aircraft. Among the party stationed furthest west from the airport, some five miles away, were East Oregonian reporters Wil Phinney and Chuck Westlund, who climbed a barbed wire fence near milepost 201 and started trudging through wispy fog along the muddy furrows of a newly seeded wheat field in search of anything that could lead them to the crash site. "Wouldn't it be weird if we did find it?" Phinney asked as he shone his weak flashlight beam along the ground.

Not five minutes into their search, at 12:25 a.m. on Dec. 4, Westlund saw the first piece of twisted metal. "I glanced at it, hoping it was a stick," Westlund wrote in his story. Seconds later, a second piece of wreckage containing part of the craft's electronic circuitry came into view, and Westlund knew they had found the crash site. Yelling to the rest of their group, and signaling to the next closest search party, Westlund and Phinney ran for the top of a short rise, following the line of debris, and saw more in the darkness below them. 

The searchers sprinted down the slope, searching desperately for survivors. But there was nothing anyone could do for the crew.

Wreckage at the scene indicated the helicopter was moving southwest when it hit the rise in the field with its landing skids, leaving them partially buried, and tearing the cabin away as it rolled down the hill. Debris was scattered in a circle about 100 yards across, with papers, maps, an oxygen bottle, blankets, medical narcotics, and even a package of "Wheel of Fortune" play money scattered along the hill in the wake of the crash. The bodies of the three crew members were found in and around the wreckage.

A scenario was later suggested by Lifeguard administrator Craig Manley that Davis had probably landed the helicopter for about 25 minutes while waiting for planes to land at the Pendleton airport. When he lifted off about 5:25 p.m., he rose into very low clouds. The accident appeared to have happened when he turned away from the airport searching for a clear area. Manley said his scenario was based on his own experience, his knowledge of the crew and Lifeguard's flying standards.

A public memorial service for Davis, Neerenberg and Borgman was held Dec. 6 at Blue Mountain Community College's Pioneer Theater.

Lifeguard's board of directors unanimously decided to keep the program flying, and an identical helicopter with some additional safety features was to be obtained from the manufacturer in Louisiana. Until the local program could be brought back on line, emergency calls were routed to other medical transport services in La Grande, Bend, Portland and Spokane.

Lifeguard Medical Transport went out of service in June of 1987 after voters rejected a $198,500 one-year operating levy for the service.

Emu walkabout causes dust-up in Pendleton

A flightless bird related to ostriches and rheas ruffled feathers in Pendleton after one of the birds escaped a pen twice in one day in August 1997, prompting calls from neighbors and a legal scuffle for the owner.

Pendleton police logged nine calls on Aug. 2, 1997, from neighbors of Budd Wolchik on Pendleton’s South Hill, after one of his flock of 20 emus flew the coop and wandered about the neighborhood. Dan Beaver and his wife, residents of Southwest Nye Avenue, could look from their backyard over Interstate 84 and see the emus bouncing around in their pens at the top of Southwest Seventh Street. And sometimes, Beaver said, they bounced off them too — nothing unusual about that. But that day, one of the emus hit the five-foot-high fence and bounced out of the pen, then proceeded to explore its surroundings as far as Southwest Isaac and 13th Street.

Wolchik chased down the errant bird and herded it back into its pen by 9:30 a.m. — not an easy task, as emus weigh 100 to 120 pounds, stand 6 to 10 feet tall and can run 40 mph. Since he’d worked a 16-hour shift the night before, Wolchik then went back to bed. Just three hours later, he was pulled from his slumber a second time for the same bird, who had again managed to escape. Sightings were called in from the 800 block of Southwest Eighth Street to the 1000 block of Southwest Hailey Avenue, and almost every street in between. Wolchik said it took less time to retrieve his bird the second time, as it was “probably hot and tired by that time,” and the emu was returned home again by 1 p.m.

But neighbors had had enough of the emu antics. In March of that year, a neighbor had filed a complaint with the Pendleton Police Department, citing problems with feathers and flies, and also called into question the zoning of Wolchik’s emu pens. Only one of Pendleton’s residential zones allowed raising livestock, bees, fowl and rabbits for non-commercial use, and Wolchik’s property was not in that zone. A “non-conforming use” exemption on the books only applied if other animals had been raised on the property within the prior year. And while horses had been raised on the property before Wolchik bought it in January of 1997, the question of whether emus could be exchanged with horses within the exemption was a sticking point.

The matter was scheduled to go before a judge, but the case was shipped to the Pendleton Planning Commission instead for an April 21 hearing. The commission heard arguments from Wolchik and his supporters, who said that emus are livestock and as such should be allowed the exemption. Two of Wolchik’s neighbors also weighed in, claiming they did not want the emus living in the neighborhood.

“We’re still getting his emus’ feathers in the swimming pool,” said neighbor Donna Schweigart.

The commission eventually voted 4-0 to oust the emus from the city limits. Wolchik explained that originally he had established his emu flock as an investment in 1993, but the market had gone south and he had changed his emphasis to raising brood stock, hoping to sell the offspring. “This is no real money-making proposition,” Wolchik said during the meeting.

Wolchik said he wouldn’t challenge the commission’s decision to the city council, and planned a “big barbecue” for the following weekend.

Hitchhiker catches ride straight to jail

A deputy sheriff for Umatilla County gave a courtesy ride to a stranger in November 1928 — straight to the Umatilla County Jail.

Deputy Sheriff Herman DeHart was returning to Pendleton from Freewater on Nov. 10, 1928, and stopped at an eating house between Milton and Freewater for lunch. He stepped inside and asked the proprietress if the lunch was ready. When she said it was not, DeHart told her he would drive on to Pendleton and eat there.

As DeHart was leaving the establishment, a well-dressed man who was sitting in the eating room spoke up and said, "Never mind fixing anything for me, I'll go to Pendleton with this man too." Surprised at the man's audacity of inviting himself along for the ride, DeHart nonetheless decided to give him a lift.

"I have to make one stop," DeHart said, "and then I'll go on to Pendleton." This was agreeable to his passenger, so the deputy stopped to see Charles Elliott, deputy sheriff for the Milton-Freewater district. In the course of their conversation, Elliott told DeHart that a garage had been burglarized the previous night, and gave his fellow deputy a description of the possible perpetrator.

After studying the description for a moment, DeHart said, "Why, I have that man in my car." 

Elliott and DeHart went to the car and questioned the man, J.C. Kitchener, who finally admitted to the burglary. He even took the deputies to the garage to show them how he entered the building.

Deputy DeHart and his passenger finally arrived in Pendleton later that evening, and Kitchener was taken straight to the Umatilla County Jail. It was discovered that the bold hitchhiker was wanted in Yakima for forgery, and for other crimes in Spokane.

Wayward card becomes holiday mystery

On Dec. 28, 1939,  a card was delivered to Pendleton resident Lorin Hecker by Andy Dalrymple, a railroad conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. Dalrymple said he found the card on the Portland Rose, an upscale passenger train established by the UP in September of 1930 that made the run from Chicago to Portland. He said the card had not been found in a mail bag.

But here’s the mystery: Hecker’s grandmother, Mrs. M.E. Calbreath of The Dalles, mailed the Washington’s birthday card to him on Feb. 19, 1914, when Hecker was just a young man. It mysteriously vanished en route to his home in Biggs, just 21 miles from his grandmother’s house. The front of the card was fairly well worn, and no other postmarks were on the envelope to show where the card had been during its 28-year hiatus.

Hecker treasured the card, because his grandmother had passed away some years after mailing it to him. He planned to investigate the card’s strange journey, if possible, in order to submit a story to “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”