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An Army Blackhawk helicopter is pictured landing in the parking lot behind Roane State’s Knox County Center for Health Sciences last month.
June 7, 2017
By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer
An Army Blackhawk helicopter landed in the parking lot of Roane State’s Knox County Center for Health Sciences last month to give students an up close view of its role in rescues and emergency medical responses.
Students crowded around the HH60L Blackhawk, valued at $18 million, to inspect the aerial ambulance’s interior and watch it in flight as crew members rappelled down on a cable and then hoisted a mannequin up and into the hovering copter.
While the copter was parked, paramedic student Becky Summers jumped inside the cramped interior for an inspection. “I think this stuff is so cool,” she said, after listening to Staff Sgt. Giovanni Dezuani answer questions.
Crouched in the cramped quarters of an Army Blackhawk helicopter, Roane State paramedic student Becky Summers listens as Tennessee Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Giovanni Dezuani answers questions posed by fellow students. The helicopter landed in the college’s Knox County Center for Health Sciences’ parking lot last month to give students an up close view of the aircraft.
“I want to be in one of these,” exclaimed another paramedic student, Karoline Hobbs. “That’s what’s in my head right now.”
Some 40 students in classes at the Knox County Center for Health Sciences, many using their cell phone cameras during the landing, gathered around the Blackhawk.
“There may be future flight paramedics here,” said crew member Sgt. First Class Tracy Banta, an adjunct professor at Roane State.
He’s a flight instructor who is a member of the Tennessee Army National Guard’s Det. 1 Co. C-1-171st AVN Regiment, Medevac Task Force based at McGhee Tyson Airport.
Along with teaching at Roane State’s Center for Health Sciences, Banta is taking a critical care paramedic class there as part of his National Guard certification requirement.
Banta said the Blackhawk is one of 12 of the helicopters based at McGhee Tyson Airport. The copters can fly 180 miles an hour and carry six patients at once while providing advanced life support. He said its external hoist features 290 feet of steel cable capable of lifting up to 600 pounds.
The copter that landed in the Roane State parking lot has been used in nine rescues in the Smoky Mountains National Park since March 2016. It was manufactured in 1983.
Blackhawks come into use when their hoists are needed and when requested by local authorities, Banta said. “We’re there to serve the whole country,” Sgt. Dezuani said.
The center’s site director, Kirk Harris, arranged for the visit. He said he hopes it can become an annual event.
To learn more about programs offered at the Knox County Center for Health Sciences, call (865) 539-6904.
A crew member of an Army Blackhawk helicopter is hoisted by a steel cable into the hovering aircraft following a visit last month to the Roane State Community College’s Knox County Center for Health Sciences.
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