Cash Landing

According to sources and medical records, the injuries Phil Hedrick suffered might have been most apparent in the way he communicated. His gift of gab had been short-circuited by the extensive head trauma and he had trouble controlling the rate and volume at which he spoke; sometimes, his voice dropped off softly. With therapy, however, his condition gradually improved and Phil became more confident in holding conversations and expressing his feelings.

But Phil's impaired reasoning and memory capabilities never allowed him to regain autonomy in making choices for himself. Overseeing matters of Phil's estate required a system of checks and balances; his financial decisions needed to controlled by someone the courts approved.

The former bachelor, independent before he met Gaela, now relied on others to get him through each day of his life. His physical disabilities kept him in a wheelchair during social outings and activities outside his home. Phil remained interested in things he did before the accident -- boating, music, church -- but he needed close and constant supervision to participate. One of Phil's biggest complaints, records show, was that he felt ignored when he was left alone.

Although she was despondent, Gaela continued what she considered a comprehensive in-home rehabilitation program after the accident. She says that was her duty as Phil's wife. She wanted him to be "normal" again.

Phil Hedrick always had endeared himself to Gaela's family, and that's one of the reasons Gaela says she was attracted to him. When Gaela's father was killed driving a tractor-trailer in Macon, Missouri, in 1989, Phil volunteered to identify the body. In 1990 at a wedding rehearsal for Gaela's sister Gena, Phil stood in her place, wrapped a sheet around his waist, walked down the aisle, and pretended to be the next Mrs. Len Hedgpeth. And when Gaela's other sister, Glenda Wells, was trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization, Phil made sure she received the proper medication and advice. Gaela's sisters equated Phil to the older brother they never had.

Phil did his best to be a father figure to Gaela's four children -- two sons, David and Robert, from her first marriage (she had been only 15), and two daughters, Courtney and Whitney, from her second. The family moved to Blue Springs, and Gaela and Phil were married in their home on January 29, 1989, Gaela's 30th birthday. "It would help Phil to remember our anniversary, because he would be in double trouble if he would forget," Gaela says.

Getting close to Gaela's children was not easy for Phil, however. Gaela's past three marriages had suffered through alcohol, drug, child, and spousal abuse. Phil, despite his single-guy rough edges, was a godsend for Gaela.

"Whitney was about 4 at the time and Phil was, like, the only father she knew," Gaela says. Gaela wanted what Phil offered: stability and a family. "There were a lot of adjustments because Phil had been a bachelor for 38 years, but Phil and I loved each other and I gave a lot to him. It's not like we didn't have any problems. We did, but Phil was very proud of his family. And when the first grandchild came along, he was always pulling out pictures of him and the grandkids."

There had been talk of Phil and Gaela's having children, but "Phil felt that if we got the four raised we'd be doing good....I remember one of the first things I thought was that if he was going to die, why can't I have his children right now?"

Two years after the Life Flight crash, the legal system began meting out the fates of the accident victims in terms of high dollars and cents. Evidence showed that French helicopter maker Turbomeca S.A. and its U.S. subsidiary, Turbomeca Engine Corp., had failed to fix a part that for years had been known to cause engine failures. Since 1985, more than a dozen crashes or engine failures, including fatalities in Bolivia and Portugal, had been attributed to a defective part that caused the engine to shut down. The courts said stiff settlements and penalties were the only way a fraudulent company would be compelled to fix the problem.

Life Flight nurse Roth, who had been paralyzed from the waist down, settled out of court. But the families of the dead -- the pilot and the patient -- went to trial. The family of Sherry Letz, whose mother in Des Moines had filed a wrongful death lawsuit seeking $144 million, was awarded $70 million by a Jackson County jury.

And in July of 1995, a jury ordered Turbomeca to pay $350 million to the Atchison, Kansas, family of the pilot, James Barnett Jr. The award to Barnett's widow, two children, and parents was the largest collectible verdict in Missouri and perhaps in the United States. A series of appeals and judges' decisions lowered the combined awards in the Roth and Barnett cases to $72 million.

Randy James, an attorney with Risjord & James of Olathe, pushed Turbomeca to settle the Hedricks' multimillion-dollar claim after jurors had been selected for a trial in Jackson County Circuit Court. Gaela says money wasn't compensation enough.