ALASKA AIRMEN’S ASSOCIATION
DEE HANSON, a note from the Executive Director
April 12, 2008

This past month, Alaska lost a most beloved, colorful aviation pioneer.  She was quite a lady, the first  Native Woman Bush Pilot, an accomplished artist and writer.   And She was my friend.  Her life will continue to be an inspiration to me and to others who had the privilege of knowing her.

Ellen was a story teller and loved to share her flying experiences, as you have witnessed over the years. She was a regular contributor to our newspaper. This past year she amazed caregivers by out-living the number of lives given to her.  This is how she lived, on the edge, everyday an exciting adventure and she loved to tell about her many lives.  Read the story she left for us in this issue on her "near miss" with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ellen will continue to be with us, living yet another life through the art and stories she left behind. 

CARBON MONOXIDE, MY NEAR MISS by Ellen Paneok    

            The Cessna 185 sits on the flight line in front of the hangar.  I stand and stare at it.  I am suited up in my Arctic weather gear and frosted air huffs about my face.  I open up the door to the cabin and peer inside.  There is a new addition to the instrument panel, a new switch.  It wasn’t there before.  It is an electric carbon monoxide detector, dubbed the “Ellen Shrine”.  It is designed to blare an aural alarm should it detect CO-2 in the air of the cockpit.  It is hard to fathom my feelings or thoughts at this particular moment.  I remember a flight years ago, in which this particular Cessna 185 nearly became the vessel of my nemesis.  I shut the cabin door.  I walk all around this aircraft, feeling, thinking.  This aircraft almost has an evil feel about it.  I am, however, determined not to let this thing, this inanimate object get to me. I think back to an incident that occurred years ago.

            It is November 22, 1988.  It is 27 degrees below zero.  I am scheduled to fly the 185 on a mail run, just a normal thing, especially when there is not a lot of mail or freight to run.  This airplane is cheaper to run than the 207.  The 185 is equipped with wheel-skis.  I also do the off-airport work with it, when it is demanded.  Today is not one of those days.  It is loaded with mail and is destined for Wainwright, then on to Atqasuq, both Inupiaq Eskimo villages, a two and a half hour flight. I am flying out of Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost village in the entire United States.  I preflight my steed in the cold and take off for a normal day’s work.  I get to Wainwright, offload what mail there is for that destination and head for Atqasuq. 

            By the time I get to Atqasuq I feel real tired.  I don’t understand why.  At the ramp I get the village agent to offload the mail.  I sit on the tailgate of their truck.  I am out of breath.  The villagers all look at me quizzically; they have always known me to work hard at getting everything off-loaded as quickly as possible.  It is an anomaly for me to just sit there while they do my work.  I sit and think that I have been working too hard and in need of a vacation.  The 185 submits to their administrations.  Soon enough I am on my way.  The airplane is now empty.  It lifts off with a freedom that only an empty airplane can do.  Then I am 30 minutes from Barrow.  It is white out, all snow, overcast and just a normal day.  I do not feel so normal at this point.  I can’t breath, I feel like a fish out of water.  I do not know why this is happening.  Despite this I don’t even feel like something is wrong.  Then I notice that the windscreen is iced up but think nothing of it until I realize that it is iced up on the inside.  I wonder why it is like that; normally ice is on the outside!  I break out the ol’ airport badge to scrape the windshield off.  Ice forms as fast as I scrape it off the window.  I get mad and scrape again and again.  After a while I start to get scared, since I suddenly realize that I cannot feel anything in my legs, hands or my face.  A split second of common sense runs through my head, a split second thought that enters my head and tells me that I am in danger.  This is carbon monoxide.  Then the thought left, leaving me to wonder why I felt so bad.  The problem is that my brain is so far gone by now that the alarms screaming through my head go unheeded.  It is 27 degrees below zero.  The heater is on full blast.  I think nothing of it.

     I am in the landing pattern at Barrow. Suddenly I realize that I can’t see out of the side of my eyes. I feel like I am in a tunnel. I feel far removed from my body.  I am crying and scared.  I cannot figure out what is wrong with me.  The flying is automatic. I am on short final.  I somehow get the aircraft onto the ground.  I do not remember getting to the ramp.  I do get out of the airplane, and promptly pass out onto the ground.  The frigid cold wakes me up and I stagger into the hangar.  I feel very sick.  I am crying.  I collapse on the couch.  I am extremely embarrassed when the Director of Maintenance (DM) and another person do the “fireman carry” through a crowded passenger terminal, with me in my full Arctic gear, with my head lolling about like a rag doll.  At the hospital the doctor says that I am “hyperventilating like a teenager”.  I am embarrassed as he pushes at my chest while the DM laughs at me, even as he tries to explain to the doctor that I just got out of a motorized vehicle and that he thinks it could be CO poisoning.  The doctor pooh-poohs the idea and sends us on our way.  He says that a CO poisoning victim always presents with a “cherry red” face and I did not have that problem.  It was later determined that the muffler on the 185 suffered a catastrophic failure and was practically in pieces.  It was also later determined that I probably had at least 30 percent CO in my blood.  In carbon monoxide exposures of up to 10 percent the victim is truly a cherry red.  However, as more exposure is subjected to the victim the redness disappears.  Victims who have actually died of CO poisoning are nearly always a normal color.

     Four days later I end up back in the hospital in the intensive care unit with an acute potassium deficiency.  My body has crashed and all bodily functions have ceased.  My heart is beating erratically and I have no strength to even lift up my arms.  My blood veins are all collapsed.  The nurse has to dig around the top of my hand with her needle to find one.  I watch that for two seconds then I faint.  Later I discover what burning pain truly is as the nearly full strength potassium serum creeps up my arm from the IV site on my hand.  I watch the heart monitor start; then stop, then it really stops and a long green line keeps going across the little screen.  I am awake! I can’t move!  How could that be!  An alarm goes off and a bunch of people come in and mess with me and the little wiggly lines come back.   The next day my former boss Jim came in with some smoked salmon and he said I looked like a dead person, all pasty and gray.  A different doctor told me that I would have died that night if I had not come in. It was also determined that I did have CO poisoning.  The doctors could only figure that the CO poisoning must have leached all the potassium out of my system. I lost my pilot medical for three months while I recovered.