Notes from the Author

This is a “factional” work based on my experience as a US Coast Guard flight surgeon during the early 1970s at the US Coast Guard Air Station in San Francisco, California. It is a true account of missions that demonstrates the incredible skill and bravery of the US Coast Guard aircrewmen, pilots, co-pilots, medical corpsmen, and physicians who save lives in weather extremes that chill the body and the mind with fear. That gut-wrenching fright must be overcome to complete the emergency tasks at hand. It is told through the eyes of a young flight surgeon, me, Dr. Lee F. Walters, fresh  out of internship.*  I felt overconfident in my training from five years at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. I quickly discovered I was not fully prepared for the difficulty of the missions in the Coast Guard. I was often overwhelmed by the circumstances and the unfriendly environments in which we worked. I hope to paint a word picture of what it was like to be a young physician put into a position of responsibility for trauma care and care of medical emergencies that I had never faced before.

*I wrote this book under a pseudonym for personal reasons. 

I was also challenged with a lifelong fear of heights. Consequently, having to be lowered from helicopters onto ships, mountaintops, fishing boats, and severe terrain caused panic. Sometimes I was out of control, having to struggle to regain my focus. For two years I fought a “flight or fright” response to being lowered from the heights by hoist from an aircrewman one hundred feet up, often during challenging weather conditions. 

     As I wrote this book, I chastised myself for not keeping a diary those many decades ago. Because so much time had passed, I was unable to obtain some of the information about the crew for specific missions. Therefore, I have fictionalized some names though not the events themselves. Some individuals did not respond to my interview requests, and some did not want their names used. I respected their wishes. The people who did respond were extremely helpful, and I was able to glean information from them about missions other than their own.

Flight surgeons in the Coast Guard are becoming dinosaurs—not because they are not needed but because their recruitment for the Coast Guard has become difficult. The supplier of flight surgeons for the Coast Guard is the US Public Health Service, and physicians today are not drawn to the Coast Guard. Time has changed their priorities.

In my opinion, the Coast Guard does more with a small federal budget in terms of saving lives and preventing ocean-related disasters than any other government service. Semper Paratus (Always Prepared) is the Coast Guard motto. It describes the service’s readiness for multiple missions, including search-and-rescue (SAR) and medical emergency missions (medevacs). I adopted that motto but I also operated under an oath I took after receiving my MD degree- the Hippocratic Oath- “First do no harm.” This book focuses on medical rescues and rescues of people in life-threatening situations. I tried to do no harm, and it wasn’t always easy.

The story begins by sharing my educational and psychological preparation for my chosen career. Part I explains how my role models molded my childhood, leading to a surprising decision to take a pre-med track in college. This list of mentors includes a professor who believed in me and helped me get into medical school on early acceptance. The story leads to some unusual clinical experiences I encountered during my fourth year of medical school, and followed by my stressful internship experience, which helped prepare me for the US Coast Guard.

Part II outlines the juxtaposition of my academic medical background with the numerous emergency situations I had to face within eight short months of my decision to enter the USCG. It also follows my progress in fighting acrophobia (fear of heights) while learning to deal with emergency situations that stretched my brain and my body. This portion of the story was the pathway to my maturity.

I avoided going to Vietnam not as a protest but as a preference, joining the US Public Health Service as a flight surgeon instead. What I did not fathom in my choice was the definition of “hazardous duty.” Being a flight surgeon in life-threatening emergency situations and being hoisted into dangerous locations during severe weather conditions were challenges I never imagined. I was often stretched professionally due to having had little or no background in a particular medical injury or emergency condition. As a neophyte physician, I relied on academics and specific teaching moments from my training. I was ill-prepared for what I encountered due to my relative lack of hands-on experience in emergency trauma medicine and surgical situations. The bottom line: I was wet behind the ears.

Cara and I want to thank those readers who have given “ Rescues from the Sky” such wonderful reviews . I want to especially thank the female readership as 100% of females have given the book 5 Stars. and all but two of the reader’s from the military have given it 5 Stars with only 2 giving it 4 Stars- that’s a 95% approval rating from the Y chromosomes who have delved into this exciting true medical rescues book. I am on to my second book whose working title is “ Contagion Chaser” about being an infectious disease detective. There is not better time to write a book with that title than during a Pandemic!

Lee F. Walters, MD, FACP, Flight Surgeon, US Coast Guard and US Public Health Service 1971–1973, San Francisco Air Station, California