An encouraging story from Alabama! State Troopers start Heli-Rescue unit.

Some say it’s easier to criticize than praise. Where there may be great truth in that simply because of our human nature, it doesn’t mean that we should continually negatively criticize. And so, acknowledging that, I present the following GOOD NEWS story for your perusal.

Would to God, there were more like them.

Which brings me to this point – which I’ve previously shared: Maintenance is the most important and most under-rated job in all the world.

Why?

Everything requires maintenance – our bodies & lives with nutrition, exercise and hygiene, our relationships with communication and forgiveness, our clothing, our residences, our pets… everything requires maintenance. And it’s much easier to get things started than it is to maintain them.

To start something without a plan for future action – and indeed, all planning is for future action – which includes a means and method of provision for ongoing maintenance is not merely short-sighted, it is ignorant.

Let’s hope and work for such positive change.

Alabama State Troopers using new helicopter, training to become force in rescues

Published: Monday, March 12, 2012, 9:15 AM     Updated: Monday, March 12, 2012, 9:26 AM

By Jeremy Gray — The Birmingham News

Hanging from the end of a line attached to a helicopter, Alabama state Trooper Shane Hobbs "rescues" Trooper Mack Ward, in the red helmet, from the woods during a training session. (The Birmingham News/Joe Songer)

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, Alabama State Troopers flew in helicopters over Mississippi and Louisiana, dropping food, water and insulin to families stranded by the storm.

“People were making signs in their yards with sticks and clothes — We need help,” Chief Pilot Lee Hamilton said. “We kept making those drops over and over again, daylight to dark, for about seven days.”

One thing troopers couldn’t do for those stranded survivors was lift them from the wreckage and fly them to safety. “It would have been nice to have been able to pick these people up, especially the ones who were hurt,” Hamilton said.

Four years later, equipped with a more powerful helicopter and following the methods of the U.S. Coast Guard, troopers were finally able to start performing the kind of air rescues Hamilton wished they could have made during Katrina.

In 2005, troopers had an aviation unit, which searches for