The 413th Flight Test Squadron does not fly rescue missions. It is a test unit. It puts helicopters through developmental trials and writes up the results.

But when the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center calls, it is usually because everything else has already been tried.

On 5 August a man in Panama City, Florida had a brain aneurysm and needed neurosurgery in Pensacola, 130 miles west. Nothing civilian could get him there. So a flight test squadron went and got him.

Two Hours From a Phone Call to the Air

Maj. Richard Burges, a 413th test pilot, took the initial call. Squadron commander Lt. Col. Dale Hargis accepted the task. Then the problems started stacking up.

The helicopter was at Eglin for a scheduled cleaning, fifteen miles from the crew at Duke Field. It was peak traffic. The aircrew, maintenance team and flight equipment all had to move south through it, while the maintainers’ shift was extended past duty hours to get the aircraft back.

Meanwhile the 96th Medical Group assembled a team: Dr. (Capt.) Jonathan Martin, an emergency physician; Capt. Erik Bjelke, an intensive care nurse; and Staff Sgt. Ramon Gonzalez, a paramedic. Bjelke and Gonzalez had recently completed the 413th’s helicopter training, so they already knew the aircraft. They gathered the patient’s details from the Panama City medical team, built a treatment plan, loaded an ambulance with monitoring equipment and drove to the flight line.

The Fuel Maths

Maj. Josh Park worked the flight plan: helipad landings at two hospitals, on-load and off-load procedures for each, and the power required for a fully loaded helicopter across roughly 250 miles.

That calculation turned out to be the mission. Burges was blunt about it: without Park’s quick and accurate planning, they would not have taken off with enough fuel to reach Pensacola without stopping.

Inside the cabin, the three medics divided a very small space. Gonzalez and the team managed the sedated patient’s assisted breathing and supplies; Bjelke watched the IV pumps and monitors.

When the medics walked into Ascension Bay, the patient’s family was waiting with him. Bjelke, on his first live patient transport, said it seemed like the Air Force was their only hope.

The Salute

With crew rest hours closing in and fuel running down, the Eglin team could not wait for Sacred Heart’s medics to help unload. They lifted the stretcher off the helicopter themselves and carried the patient into the emergency department.

The security guard who had stopped traffic for the helicopter to land turned and saluted them as they passed.

The Huey lifted off from Sacred Heart with ten minutes of fuel remaining and stopped at Pensacola airport to refuel for the trip home. The patient went into surgery.

Col. Tara Lovell, commander of the 96th Medical Group, said the collaboration between the two units was instrumental in saving the patient’s life, and that beyond serving the local community the mission validated the wing’s rapid-response and readiness capabilities.

Which is the quiet point underneath the story. A unit whose day job is measuring how helicopters behave in controlled conditions was, on a Tuesday afternoon, the only thing standing between a man and a bleed in his brain. It was not their mission. They flew it anyway.

Sources: Eglin Air Force Base public affairs, 24 August 2026, reporting by Samuel King Jr.; U.S. Air Force imagery.