POMPANO BEACH — Two people are dead and four others are seriously injured after a Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire-Rescue helicopter crashed into a building just south of the Pompano Beach Airpark Monday morning. Bystander video showed the helicopter in the air with smoke trailing before it spun out of control and hit the ground about 8:45 a.m. The helicopter was on its way to an accident in North Lauderdale when the pilot notified the department, as it was crashing, that they weren’t able to respond, said Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony. “This tragedy is really going to challenge us as a community,” Tony said. “We are hurt but we are prepared to answer the next call. We are not going to lose focus even though we are dealing with our own tragedy.” Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue took two people out of the Airbus Helicopter EC 135T-1 and raced them to Broward Health North Hospital. BSO paramedic Michael Caio Seda, 31, and fire-rescue pilot Darren Rocher, 37, were captured on a bystander’s cellphone video climbing to safety on the roof of the home where the helicopter crashed. “Our fallen captain, Terryson Jackson, 50, been with organization 19 years,” Tony said. “In the crash he was trapped, could not get out and we lost him.” Jackson was featured in a video for the Sheriff’s Office for Black History Month in 2020 in which his passion for helping others was highlighted. In the video, Jackson said he came from a family dedicated to medicine and helping people. His mother and father are nurses. “As a captain and flight paramedic for Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue, my position is to provide the highest level of pre-hospital care while swiftly delivering the patient to the most appropriate medical or trauma facility,” he said in the video. “This career really chose me,” he said. “I get to impact my community each and every day.” The name of the other person who died, a civilian woman, has not been released. Two other people who were on the ground were also taken to the hospital for treatment.
I saw the footage of the helicopter coming down on my local news station and it looked to me like they never reached the height necessary to allow the pilot to perform an emergency landing known as autorotation, that anyone survived that shows the strength of helicopter airframes.
That's a bitch for everyone involved. Shitty luck living in that apartment where it crashed. Hope those people don't get fucked and have to fight for basic compensation and also don't get greedy and try to sue for absurd damages.
It was a strange crash. There was a fire at the rear of the fuselage and then as the copter spun, the boom folded sideways - probably softened by the heat.
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Bystander video showed the helicopter in the air with smoke trailing before it spun out of control and hit the ground about 8:45 a.m. The helicopter was on its way to an accident in North Lauderdale when the pilot notified the department, as it was crashing, that they weren’t able to respond, said Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony.
“This tragedy is really going to challenge us as a community,” Tony said. “We are hurt but we are prepared to answer the next call. We are not going to lose focus even though we are dealing with our own tragedy.”
Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue took two people out of the Airbus Helicopter EC 135T-1 and raced them to Broward Health North Hospital. BSO paramedic Michael Caio Seda, 31, and fire-rescue pilot Darren Rocher, 37, were captured on a bystander’s cellphone video climbing to safety on the roof of the home where the helicopter crashed.
“Our fallen captain, Terryson Jackson, 50, been with organization 19 years,” Tony said. “In the crash he was trapped, could not get out and we lost him.”
Jackson was featured in a video for the Sheriff’s Office for Black History Month in 2020 in which his passion for helping others was highlighted. In the video, Jackson said he came from a family dedicated to medicine and helping people. His mother and father are nurses.
“As a captain and flight paramedic for Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue, my position is to provide the highest level of pre-hospital care while swiftly delivering the patient to the most appropriate medical or trauma facility,” he said in the video. “This career really chose me,” he said. “I get to impact my community each and every day.”
The name of the other person who died, a civilian woman, has not been released. Two other people who were on the ground were also taken to the hospital for treatment.