The owner of charter jet company Red Wing Aeroplane converted one of his planes into an ad-hoc ambulance to help fly home a Minnesota boy who’d been injured during a family vacation in Costa Rica.
Wes Converse, the president of Red Wing Aeroplane said, “I looked at my wife and said I think we can help this family.”
“I just felt because it was someone right in our community, we had our resources to help them. It felt like the right thing to do,” Converse added.
Last week we reported about the Lopez family being stranded in Costa Rica, after their 3-year-old son was injured and had a cast that prevented them from taking a commercial flight.
A special air ambulance would have cost them $40,000.
A Minnesota family is finally home from Costa Rica after a generous WCCO viewer saw their story and stepped into help a 3-year-old boy with a broken leg who couldn’t fly. | https://t.co/NQToZCkgqL pic.twitter.com/17sMEZfDie
— WCCO – CBS Minnesota (@WCCO) July 23, 2018
The family was able to raise $26,272 of $42,000 goal in the first six days of their odeal through a GoFundMe campaign.
Thanks to Wes Converse and his Red Wing company, and the generority of the 455 donators, Emmee Lopez posted on Sunday, “We are back home and relaxing, and Axel is feeling much better to be back in his own bed. We have gotten the news we will be seeing the specialists team at St Mary’s Hospital in Tuesday morning at 7am! Thank you for all your generous donations, love, prayers and support.”
Red Wing reconfigured one of their airplanes to accommodate Axel’s needs and flown out to Costa Rica on Friday for the six-and-a-half hours flgiht… at no charge.
