Former Marine, Navy enlistee is among victims of Highway 50 helicopter crash
Margaret “DeDe” Davis enlisted in the Marines as an 18-year-old and then transferred to the Navy to work toward a life’s goal of becoming an emergency responder.
She later became a volunteer firefighter in the Plumas County town of Chester, then joined MedX AirOne in Nevada as a flying paramedic in 2019, according to a post spotlighting her accomplishments on the Intermountain Health Instagram account.
On Monday, the 66-year-old paramedic was on board the medevac helicopter that crashed onto freeway lanes of Highway 50 in East Sacramento. Davis was rushed to the hospital where she’s is in critical condition, according to Reach Air Medical Services, the operator of the helicopter.
Davis was one of three crew members on board. The others were pilot Chad Millward, 60, and Susan “Suzie” Smith, 67, a nurse. Millward is in critical condition, while Smith was receiving care at UC Davis Medical Center.
A family member told KCRA 3 in Sacramento that Davis was “recovering well and in good spirits.”
Davis once said her first flight was in a small Cessna plane with her cousin who was in the Air Force. She was 12 years old at the time, according to the Instagram post. During her time in the Marines, she recalled being “dared” by member of the airborne unit to jump out of a plane.
“I couldn’t back down from from the dare because I was followed to the drop zone to confirm follow through. I made my first jump and loved it,” Davis said, according to the social media post, which says she attended an EMT class through San Diego Community College.
The three crew members departed Sacramento’s UC Davis Medical Center in the helicopter shortly after 7 p.m. and were headed to Redding, where Reach Air Medical Services is based. Their flight lasted less than a minute before crashing roughly a quarter-mile from the hospital’s helicopter pad.
Motorists who were driving on the freeway as the helicopter crashed left their cars and helped authorities pull the victims from the crash site. Responders said all three members of the crew were taken to the UC Davis Medical Center for treatment within about 20 minutes of the crash.
The cause of the crash is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.
MedX AirOne, an air ambulance service operating in Nevada, was rebranded to become part of Classic Air Medical earlier this decade, according to those companies’ websites. Classic Air Medical was acquired in 2021 by Intermountain Health, a Utah-based nonprofit health care service that operates hospitals in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.
