I got into flying really based on the love of fishing when I lived in the Southeast.

And I love fishing in the Bahamas.

My entry into flying and working was here at Springfield, Colorado, living in Denver and just needing an efficient way to get down here one day a month.

[airplane creaking] And then that sprung into going to 12 other towns and going every day, [plane rolling] Doctor Frankum has been coming here for a very long time, and his services are extremely important to us.

He comes once a month, and just since I've been over here the last couple of years, I know numerous people he has found cancers on or snipped polyps off of.

So just the preventative services he's able to offer us alone is phenomenal.

Now you got to tell the box everything you want to know.

200, so were landing south.

A critical access hospital is going to provide the care needed to stabilize.

You may not be able to have the the full end treatment for this person, but you can stabilize them and transfer them to the closest appropriate hospital or trauma center.

[Burdick] For whoever needs it!

It's life or death.

I mean, that's all it boils down to.

The nearest place is an hour away.

We are that first line of getting people stable.

We're in a very, very rural setting.

It's really important to the people around town, because they live here, and they don't have the option to go to Denver every time they're sick.

[plane buzzing] These are the hard working farmer-ranchers, and they have to be here all the time.

[airplane buzzing] A lot of people on the Kansas-Colorado border are not necessarily big fans of the urban setting.

And so they love having what care can be provided for them in the rural setting.

There's continuity of care.

A lot of times in the smaller towns, youll go to the E.R.

for something really bad, and lo and behold, it's your primary care doctor, And he knows you.

And he knows not just your medical history, he also knows a little bit of your personal history, too.

And then it's very important for the hospitals to have that revenue generation at their town.

[car humming] Most of these towns are about 2,500 or less, and almost always the hospitals the largest employer in the town.

A lot of these are ma and pa hospitals.

They're not owned by giant corporations, so they're hanging on by a thread.

Because it does happen where where you have a hospital that collapses.

Their funds run out, and they have to shut down.

And then that town doesn't have anything.

No one wants that.

We're able to give blood, we're able to stabilize.

Without that stabilization to be able to happen as quickly as it can, people would definitely die.

At the end of the day, if tragedy happens, everybody pulls together to take care of everybody.

[jacket rustling]