FLYING SAMARITAN

Evening Star, Issue 20428, 8 March 1930, Page 9

FLYING SAMARITAN

Ensign Lindow has received a Carnegie award for gallantry. _ . And who, asks the Briton, is Ensign Lindow? All Sweden knows. It is a question that could never be asked in Lapland. First of all, think of the Northern wilderness in winter. Think of the people living in lonely settlements, wrestling with frost and snow for a living, and cheerfully enduring’ all sorts of hardships save one. That one exception is the fear which overshadows their lives. Suppose they fall ill, or break a limb, ■'hat will happen to them, with all those vast stretches of ico and snow between them and a doctor or surgeon? Then think of the air stations at Boden, Froesoen, and Stockholm. A wireless call for help comes from some place in the wilderness. Can the air ambulance lly to the rescue? It may mean setting out in the dark, with no knowledge of a landing place. As often as not a snpwstorm is raging. The pilots might justifiably say: “It is no use risking three lives. I will try next morning.” But the pilots of the Swedish Red Cross air ambulances have flown in such appalling conditions that they have deserved the hero-worship which surrounds them. They are known as the Flying Samaritans. Perhaps the two most famous names are those of Sergeant Cornelius (who has won tho Royal Gold Medal for meritorious deeds, tho gold plaque of tho Swedish Aero Club, and a Carnegie award) and Ensign Lindow. There are endless tales of the lives they have saved by dangerous flights made at a moment’s notice. _ Once Ensign Lindow was asked if ho would bring a woman to hospital for an urgent operation. He found her tied to her bed and raving in delirium. She was a powerful woman, and fought those who. would have helped her, but after a struggle she was got into the air ambulance, strapped to a stretcher. The weather was bad, and tho ground was bad. After several efforts to get off Ensign Lindow found he could only do it by leaving his mechanic behind. That was a risky thing to do, but Lindow decided to take the risk rather than delay taking the poor woman to hospital.. After he had ilown some way he looked back and saw a sight which filled him with horror. With a strength horn of madness the woman had struggled out of her bonds and was trying to get out of the plane. Lindow climbed up on the buck of his seat and grasped her just in time. He made the rest of that journey with an arm about the struggling woman, •while he piloted the plane with one hand.

Twice they ran into blinding snowstorms, but tho nightmare flight came to an end at last. Directly they reached the Air Ambulance station the woman was rushed to hospital, and surgeons performed an operation which saved her life and sanity and the life of her child. As for Lindow, he was' so numb with cold and so exhausted by his struggle that he could hardly stand. But it was all in the day’s work of a Flying Samaritan. No wonder the people of Northern Sweden make heroes of these knighterrants .of the air.