Emergency personnel from Greenville to Raleigh helped escort the bodies of three Duke Life Flight crew members from the Medical Examiner’s Office in Pitt County to their respective funeral homes on Wednesday.
Life Flight pilot Jeff Burke, and flight nurses Kris Harrison and Crystal Sollinger were killed in a helicopter crash last Friday near Belvidere in rural Perquimans County in northeastern NC.
Fire trucks, ambulances, police, deputies and troopers escorted the fallen first responders bodies home as a way to honor them.
The helicopter was based at Johnston Regional Airport near Smithfield. The procession made its way past the airport and the hanger where the Duke Life helicopter that went tdown had been located.
A 70 year-old patient being transported from a hospital in Elizabeth City to Durham, Mary Bartlett, also died in the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash. One eyewitness reported hearing the engine sputter before the helicopter went down. Photo courtesy JoCoFire.com
