Alaska 4-9

Do you like those Hallmark movies where the whole town pulls together to work a miracle? Sure, we all do. They make us happy, and somehow they harken back to a sweeter time in this country, when people really did things like this...

You probably can infer from the town's name that Igiugig, Alaska, is a very remote part of the world. But when the life of a child is hanging in the balance, it doesn't matter if you're in London, New York, Keokuk, or Igiugig. Something has to be done, and it take a village...even a remote village.

Here's the story. One Friday evening in September, a child from Igiugig (population 70) needed a medevac flight to Anchorage. LifeMed, the company that does these flights, sent a plane to the little town airport, right at the mouth of the Kvichak River on the south end of Iliamna Lake. It's a 30-minute flight usually, no problem.

But this year, the village’s state-owned airport has had some problems with the runway lights. It all started when a snow removal contractor knocked something offline with a plow.  Whatever the reason, the lights weren't on when they needed to be, and the plane kept buzzing around, unable to land.

Local resident Ida Nelson heard the plane circling and knew that something was wrong. “When they first flew over, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that sounds like a weird vehicle. I’ve never heard that truck before,'” she said. “And it wasn’t a truck, it was an airplane. Anytime there’s any type of planes flying after dark, you always assume it’s going to be something urgent and an emergency,” she said. 

Nelson can see the airport from her house (no word on whether she can see Russia) and so she could tell the runway lights were off. This being a community airport, any citizen can go throw a switch and light up the airfield, but no go this time.

A lot of people would have shrugged and said, "Huh. How about that?"

But Ida Nelson is not a lot of people. She got on her four-wheeler and raced to the runway, taking a neighbor along. 

“She started calling other people and waking them up. Like, ‘Get up, get out of bed, come line up the runway,’” Ida said. 

Ida's neighbor called 32 households. That's pretty much everyone in the village, and what do you think?

Pretty much everyone in the village drove on down to the airport and used their headlights to illuminate the landing zone. A pilot got on the radio of one of the planes parked there and communicated with the LifeMed pilot.

The child and family boarded the plane, and once it taxied and took off, everyone went home, having been part of a good community effort.

Next day, the LifeMed people posted a picture on Facebook - a dark area with some lights off in the distance.

The company wrote: “What appears to be a blurry, dark photo is actually a view of what an amazing community can do with a lot of determination.” 

Nelson is happy that people were willing to come running when the need was there, and she's thankful for the patience of the pilot who was willing to wait.

“I’m just truly happy and proud to be from here,” she said.