BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – When Sky Terry began working with the Emergency Volunteer Air Corps (EVAC) in 2009, his goal was to establish a plan to aid residents of the west coast in the event of a catastrophic emergency.

Since 2009, Terry’s work has grown from just emergency evacuations and assistance. A few years ago, he began working with a collective of Washington-based pilots to transport patients to and from Seattle Children’s Hospital with the use of seaplanes.

Little did he know, his family would be the first to use this new program.

“To actually be the first ones to use it was kind of surreal,” said Terry. “In a lot of ways, it validated all of the years of hard work.”

In the fall of 2023­, Terry’s daughter needed a procedure done at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Having a previously bad experience driving back after her first surgery just a few years prior, Terry decided to see if this plan to fly from Lake Whatcom to Lake Washington was possible.

Terry then reached out to Don Goodman, a pilot for Lake Whatcom Seaplanes (LWS) who operates out of the Floathaven Seaplane Base on Lake Whatcom. He explained the situation and asked for a ride home from the hospital.

Immediately, LWS donated an aircraft, gas and took the day off from their seaplane tour business to help Terry’s family.

Following the procedure, the seaplane met up with Terry and his daughter less than a mile from the hospital on the banks of Lake Washington. After boarding the seaplane, they then flew directly to Lake Whatcom and landed just 40 minutes after departing.

This was the first time Terry’s daughter took flight in a seaplane.

“Instead of being stuck in the back of a van in traffic, I got to hold her and her ‘stuffy’,” said Terry. “You don’t see kids come out of the hospital with that big of a smile.”

Sky Terry poses with his daughter at the Floathaven Seaplane Base on Lake Whatcom. The two of them were able to use seaplanes to travel home from Seattle Children’s Hospital. Photographer: Sam Kristofferson

Following that initial flight with his daughter, Terry has continued to work on establishing a donation-based program for families to use for planned procedures at the hospital. A seaplane will drop the passengers off less than one mile away from the hospital, where Terry has set up for the local non-profit “Lets Sack Cancer” to drive them just a few minutes to their destination.

Aside from seaplane transportation to and from Seattle Children’s Hospital, Terry assists in the execution of an event called the “Thunder Run”, an annual all-hands-on-deck drill that incorporates pilot groups across the state of Washington.

The goal with these drills is to take the training and planning for disaster relief out of the office and into the skies. Pilots and crews are flying from different points in the state with large payloads of food to simulate a natural disaster devastating the ground below.

“Most exercises simulate or move stuff, but not on a huge scale. We’re moving real food to food banks,” said Terry, who last year moved over 800 pounds of food to Point Roberts during this exercise. “We put planes in the air, ham operators on the ground and none of it is tabletop.”

Prior to starting this work in 2009, Terry served for five years as a medic in the United States Army. Following this, Terry entered civilian life wanting to continue to help others in any way that he could.

Looking back at previous natural disasters and noticing how relief was executed, Terry realized that emergency services both on the state and national level cannot do everything. From this, he was compelled to establish a strong network of pilots around the state to make sure if anything did go wrong, someone would be there to help.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Terry worked with FEMA and the state of Washington to deliver PPE around the region.

“FEMA has donated literally millions of pounds of supplies to EVAC which we have flown into Canada, Skagit County and we even went to Oregon,” said Terry.

Through all of this, Terry gives a lot of credit to his wife for supporting this huge part of his life.

“She’s been very gracious and very patient and is still by my side. I have been truly blessed by her and I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

This year’s Thunder Run is scheduled for June 8 and June 9. EVAC, as well as multiple crews of the Disaster Airlift Response Team (DART) will be assisting in this years exercise. In total, the Thunder Run is slated to carry and donate 40,000 pounds of food to foodbanks across the region.

For more information on Northwest EVAC and updates to their work, click here.