Thursday, January 8, 2015

ELLSWORTH AIRMEN INJURED IN ACCIDENT ON BASE BETWEEN A FUEL TRUCK AND A SNOW PLOW.



ELLSWORTH AIRMEN INJURED IN ACCIDENT ON BASE BETWEEN A FUEL TRUCK AND A SNOW PLOW.

Piedmont, South Dakota

An accident involving a snow plow and a fuel truck Monday at Ellsworth Air Force Base sent two airmen to the hospital, where one reportedly underwent an arm amputation.
The base’s spokesman, Capt. Christopher Diaz, said the accident happened at about 5 a.m. Monday. An airman first class and a senior airman were operating a fuel truck during snow removal operations on the flight line. The two airmen who were operating the fuel truck suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the accident, Diaz said, and were transported to Rapid City Regional Hospital. The airman who was operating the snow plow was not injured.

Diaz said privacy laws prevent him from releasing the airmen’s names, and the ongoing status of the accident investigation prevents him from releasing further details.
Some unconfirmed details emerged on social media, where the airmen were identified as Quoc Ly and Mike Husske. Ly was in serious condition Wednesday at Rapid City Regional Hospital, and Husske was in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The hospital releases one-word condition reports on patients if the requester supplies the names, but no further information is released.

On Tuesday, a page was created on the GoFundMe.com website to raise money for the injured airmen. The page’s creator, who reportedly worked with the two injured airmen, did not respond to a Facebook message or email from the Journal.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the page’s donation tally was nearly $6,000. The page said the money will be split between the two injured airmen's families "to offset the cost of staying with them during this time."

Initially, the GoFundMe page contained a narrative with details about the accident. The narrative was trimmed and most of the accident details were removed sometime Wednesday. Also Wednesday, someone posted a message on the base’s official Facebook page asking “everyone to refrain from discussing/posting the Airmen’s personal information and the details of the incident and injuries.”

On the Facebook page of Quoc Ly, meanwhile, a woman who identified herself as his sister provided accident details similar to those originally listed on the GoFundMe site and said Ly underwent a right-arm amputation at the hospital following the accident.