Deja Vous

After my last post lamenting the lack of breaking news and a flight reporter wouldn't you know last nights show included both.

Let me reset this. A couple of years ago, some of you may remember The Cliff Hanger. It was a defining moment for helicopter news gathering here in Vancouver. You had a boy, his dog, stranded high on a cliff in North Vancouver. Chopper 9 brought the rescue of the lad and his dog LIVE during the 6PM news. At the time flight reporter David Kincaid carried the show on his back with his informative oratory from the sky.

Fast forward to Wednesday of this week and for some reason, Kink ends up reassigned back into the flying machine. The first time in several months. As he buckles himself in he states to Guiv (pilot) and Gary (Flight Camera Op): "Wouldn't it be nice if we had something breaking tonight."
No sooner had he got those words out over the flight intercom, the scanner yielded a "high angle rescue" at a place called Quarry Rock. The very same location of the Cliff Hanger of two years ago. He could not have planned it any better.

I happened to be close to a TV as the 6 began. I was tuning in to see an item that I had shot earlier while on skis. As the show opened they went immediately to breaking news. A familiar looking cliff, Kinks voice describing the developing scene below. A dog, this time, a women and of course the high angle rescue team of the North Van FD. As with the first story from two years ago, this too had a happy ending. Perfect TV, danger, drama, a rescue and nobody gets hurt. Good stuff. So good the item which I had originally tuned in for gets dropped from the show and held for tomorrow.

Now it's official. I am the only member of the CTV Flight Crew that has yet to shoot a High Angle dog/person rescue at Quarry Rock.
No matter, it's been done.