Michael Burks - Joe McNeal and Mya on Talk Back for Angel Flight

Missoula entrepreneur Michael Burks has turn into deeply concerned with Angel Flight, a bunch of impartial pilots who fly youngsters that want remedy to their appointments freed from cost.

Burks and former Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy and now filmmaker Joe McNeal appeared on the KGVO Talk Back Show on Thursday with their particular visitor Mya, a 17 year-old sufferer of osteogenesis imperfecta, to speak a couple of documentary at present in manufacturing referred to as ‘Angels Do Fly West’.

Burks described how he bought concerned with Angel Flight.

“I noticed an commercial for Angel Flight on Fb and did a little analysis on it and discovered that the suggestions and the issues which might be wanted to turn into an Angel Flight pilot are very, very attainable by any pilot,” stated Burks. These embrace 250 hours, a VFR score and insurance coverage, so I instantly signed up and the outcomes and the satisfaction and happiness and every thing that comes together with serving others was speedy. You take care of folks which might be principally simply specializing in one factor and one factor solely and that is saving the life of somebody they love.”

Burks stated he and the opposite Angel Flight pilots have a particular mission.

“Angel Flight is principally for comply with ups,” he stated. “What we do is alleviate the journey and value to sufferers equivalent to Mya, who lives in Missoula, who has to go to Seattle at instances a couple of times a month. So, taking that eight hour drive and turning it into a 3 hour flight is big for them. They do not must pay for airways; they do not pay for resort, fuel or something. “All of the pilots which might be concerned within the flight community are happy to have the ability to alleviate all these prices and all that stress. Foe Mya alone, you heard her story, she’s had over 100 damaged bones. So sitting in a automotive for eight hours is simply not possible for her.”

McNeal, who has received quite a few worldwide prizes for his writing and movie making, described his involvement with the documentary.

“It began out as simply ‘let’s simply do a video’ and now it is exploded right into a documentary film, to assist with training,” stated McNeal. “We wish to assist let the general public know that they want extra pilots and that that that is on the market for people who find themselves already financially strapped and worrying in regards to the medical points. However to me, I am getting into it it saying, ‘these are unsung heroes’, and the general public must know that there are folks on the market doing the proper factor for the proper causes.”

KGVO then spoke to Mya who shared her story.

“I am 17, and I’ve osteogenesis imperfecta, I simply graduated highschool, and I am excited to be right here,” stated Mya. “About Angel Flight, my mother heard about it on-line and we began working with him and he flew me to my appointments in Seattle the place I had surgical procedures and simply checkups and many surgical procedures on like my legs and simply rods being changed and issues like that. So I am actually fortunate to have them in my life.”

McNeal stated the documentary ‘Angels Do Fly West’ is in manufacturing and he hopes to enter the movie into the various documentary movie festivals inside the subsequent yr.

Discover out extra about Angel Flight here.