Redding-based nurse among three injured in Reach helicopter crash in Sacramento
Update: Suzie Smith, 67, died from her injuries, the company and family announced on Saturday.
Original story:
When Kim Zagaris saw news that a Reach Air Ambulance helicopter, which crashed Monday evening on a busy Sacramento freeway, was from Redding, he wondered whether Susan Smith was still working for it.
Long before Zagaris served as state fire and rescue chief at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, he had grown up in the Redding area with Smith and her husband, Richard. They were all friends in high school, Zagaris said. He even served as an usher at their 1978 wedding.
Zagaris hadn’t kept in close touch with Susan Smith over the years, as he’d left the Redding area to pursue fire service work. But he had kept tabs on people from the old days on Facebook and was saddened by news of his old friend’s hospitalization.
“It’s tragic to see what happened, let alone a crash in public safety,” said Zagaris, who lives in Auburn. “It’s a pretty tight-knit community most days. Nobody wants to see what happens and you just have to feel for them and the events that occurred.”
Details were still emerging about Monday’s crash, including the names of the other two crew members hospitalized following the crash at UC Davis Medical Center, the region’s only Level I trauma center. All remained hospitalized as of Tuesday morning, according to Pamela Wu, a spokesperson for UCDMC.
According to motorists who helped firefighters rescue the passengers of the Airbus E130 helicopter on the eastbound lanes of Highway 50, Smith had been pinned beneath the helicopter and was not responsive when she was taken to UCDMC. Two other people aboard, a man in his early 60s and a woman in her late 60s were identified as a pilot and a paramedic.
None of the victims’ names have been released. A spokesperson for Reach’s parent company, Texas-based Global Medical Response, said it expected to share more information with the public soon.
Susan Smith’s involvement in the crash was confirmed by Kevin Luntey, her brother-in-law. She was hospitalized in critical condition. Her condition Tuesday morning was unknown, with Luntey saying the family would soon provide additional information.
What is clear at this point is that Susan Smith, who is 67 and has lived in the Redding area, had forged a long career in the nursing field. It was also apparent that even decades after the fact, those who knew her when she was growing up still held fond memories.
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Known to those around her as Suzie, Smith said in a biography on a Reach website that she’d grown up on a 30,000-acre cattle farm that her family had worked on for “generations.”
“She was a great gal,” said Redding Mayor Jack Munns, who attended Enterprise High School with Smith in the mid-1970s. “I sat right next to her in one of my classes.”
Asked what he remembered about Smith’s personality, Munns replied, “She was outgoing and bubbly and fun.”
Zagaris said that he had heard through many in the community over time that Susan Smith had become an effective nurse.
Smith appeared to know early on that she wanted to be a nurse, with a Redding Record Searchlight announcement of her wedding noting that she was at Shasta College at the time, studying to be a registered nurse.
In her Reach biography, Smith said that she’d become a nurse at 22 and that it was all she’d ever done.
“I got recruited into flight nursing,” Smith said, according to her Reach bio. “I love it, and I’d be bored if I did anything else. It’s exciting to me to share the riches of this life. So many people try to find satisfaction in partners or material things. With this work, I get so much more than I give. It sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.”
Smith’s roots in public safety run deep. Her mother, Judith Bartell, was volunteer captain of the Palo Cedro Fire Hall, according to her 2019 obituary. Smith’s brother, Forrest Bartell, has served as director of the Burney Fire Protection District.
Zagaris, who retired from his work at OES in recent years, was struck by Smith’s continued dedication to her field. “To still be on Life Flight, still doing things, tells me a lot about how she continues to give back and (is) very accomplished in what to do,” Zagaris said.
Asked what he’d say if he could give any message to Smith’s family, Zagaris said, “‘I’ll now definitely have a few more things to pray about for her and them.”
Munns offered similar thoughts.
“We just pray the best for them, that our hopes and prayers are with them and that they come to a full recovery,” Munns said.
This story was originally published October 7, 2025 at 1:51 PM.
