Chris Milana Jr. Helo crashed in Afghanistan IP: 24.26.80.230 Posted on July 20, 2012 at 00:35:22 AM by webmaster
Please keep our oldest son, Chris Jr., in your prayers...
Earlier today (Wed) his Medivac Black Hawk crashed in western Afghanistan. Information is sketchy...but it appears they were attempting to pick-up injured military personnel from a recent fight...after several attempts to land they had to abort due to poor visability (sp) and in so doing apparently flew into the side of a mountain.
All 4 crew members (2 pilots, medic and Chris Jr., a Crew Chief) were able to get out of the helicopter before it exploded destroying it. Chris Jr, was apparently most seriously injured and is being flown to Germany and then to U.S. to an undetermined location for treatment/surgery.
Best we can learn is he has a torn ACL in one knee, tricep got torn from one elbow and some sort of back injury...could have been much worse...all lucky to be alive. We are hopeful for a full recovery so he can return to Tampa PD where he has been an officer for almost 3 years.
He did 6 years as a Medivac Crew Chief when active duty Army with 3 tours in Iraq...this is 1st deployment as a Reservist...he has a 7 week old daughter that he just saw while home on R&R about 5 weeks ago. His wife has been able to speak with him...she is visiting her family in Kansas...due to poor cell phone service here in Yellowstone, we have been unable to speak directly with him but he has left us voice messages.
BTW...this may speed up our return to Tampa...just waiting to see what his schedule/plan is...