Fifty-five terminally ill kids tour Westover

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. James Bishop
  • 439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. -- --  On Jan. 6, 55 terminally and seriously ill children and young adults visited Westover as part of a winter adventure. This was the second year the New York-based non-profit organization Kids of Courage toured the base. The group works to improve the lives of children and young adults with serious medical diagnoses.

A team of more than 200 volunteer physicians, paramedics, nurses, physical therapists, trained lay staff and families accompanied the children.

"These are tough kids," said Dr. Stuart Ditchek, attending physician for the trip. "About 80 percent of them are already at or above their life expectancy."

The group quickly assembled on the flightline side of the Base Hangar to watch four "loud" passes by an F-15 from Barnes Air National Guard Base. Then the group split into a dozen activities that amounted to a mini-airshow.

Participants, aged 13-24, toured a C-5B, a Blackhawk helicopter, and the F-15, which landed following the fly-by. They also visited stations positioned around the hangar to sit in a fire truck, watch a demonstration from a Chicopee police K-9 unit, handle an array of heavy firearms, ride in Marine Corps Humvees, and even get carried up and down in a K-loader outside the Base Hangar.

Members of the 42nd Aerial Port Squadron rigged a high-lift next to the C-5, giving 20 wheelchair-bound kids the rare chance to explore the flight deck of the largest aircraft in the U.S. military.

Participants included "Coach K," Itzy Kagan, who, at 24 years old, is the longest-living quadriplegic on a ventilator in the world, said Dr. Ditchek. "He was hit by a car when he was 2 ½ and dragged two blocks. He wasn't expected to live."

Yet Coach K was on the north taxiway on the warm January day, cheering with the group of 269 when an F-15 performed multiple passes.

Rivky Deren, who has Bloom's Syndrome, was on last year's tour and hoped to return this year. However, Rivky had to remain at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., after a double lung transplant last summer, said Dr. Ditchek.

At the Blackhawk static display, the most-frequently asked question was, "Can you take me for a ride?"

"These kids aren't shy," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Alex Engelson, Blackhawk aircraft commander, smiling.

Dr. Ditchek said he used the trip as incentive to convince some of the sickest kids to do everything they could to get better.

"One 16-year-old with a serious tumor completed chemotherapy two days before the trip," he said.

Three TV stations attended the event and conducted multiple interviews with kids and organizers. The cameras turned on Hudi Arieh, born without arms, who plans to attend law school next fall. As Hudi's interview was ending, the next interviewee, wheelchair-bound Jake Hytken, joked with her, "You'd better not get more air time than me just because you don't have arms."

Being up front about disabilities is the healthiest attitude for everyone to take, Dr. Ditchek said.
Watching the kids in the Base Hangar, Sara Kaplan said, "I love my job, but nothing I do in my office compares with this." Kaplan is a senior staff nurse at Beth Israel Medical Center.

The "kids of courage" left an impression on the three dozen volunteers. SMSgt. Tim Day, who led the base-wide, Top 3-sponsored effort, said, "If it was a thrill for the kids, it was at least as big a thrill for us."