The nurse who was on board the helicopter that crashed in Sacramento has died, REACH Air Medical Services said on Saturday.
Suzie Smith was identified as one of the people who was in the medical helicopter that crashed onto Highway 50 on Monday. She was seriously injured and had been in critical and unstable condition since the crash.
“We will remember Suzie as a pillar of the EMS and healthcare community who saved countless lives by delivering compassionate care in their darkest hours,” REACH said. “Suzie’s 50-year career as a nurse included nearly 21 years with REACH, and we are proud to call her our colleague and friend.”
Smith’s friends and colleagues say she was known for her steady hand, her kind heart, and her unwavering commitment to patients in their darkest hours.
Smith is survived by her husband, son, two sisters, and a brother.
“I watched her as the children would come up to her and she’d get down on one knee, down to their level, and she would just identify with them and she would make them feel comfortable,” said Clint Hanley.Â
Her mission to help others reached far beyond California, to remote villages in Nicaragua, where she provided free cleft palate surgeries to children.
“Her memory will live on in other countries around the world for a lot of years from all the lives she’s changed,” Hanley said.
Hanley flew Smith and medical teams into hard-to-reach communities and places where her kindness spoke louder than any language barrier.
“She would actually view people, take pictures of them so that the surgery team would be able to know if they were candidates for what they could do,” Hanley said.
That compassion and ability to connect is what her family and friends say defined her life.
“What she would like to have as a legacy is for people to go forward remembering the help they bring to other people is vital, it is remembered, and the lives that she changed from the help she would give will continue,” Hanley said.Â
“It’s with a heavy heart that I write this message. I got to hold my mother while she passed last night, but her legacy is far from over,” her son Gabriel Smith said in a Facebook post. “In my mother’s line of work she was never far from death, but she never let it harden her heart. She knew every second was precious and chose to spend that time helping others and building communities.”
The crash happened while the REACH 5 Medical Air crew was heading back to Redding after dropping off a patient at UC Davis Medical Center. Also onboard was a pilot and paramedic, who remain in critical condition. REACH identified them as Chad Millward, the pilot, and Margaret “DeDe” Davis, the paramedic.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.