About twice a month my company will fly a surgeon in for what we call a VIP visit. The surgeon will usually spend the weekend in the city, but the main reason for his visit will be to meet with marketing and engineering to discuss new products, ideas, etc. He will always be accompanied by his local rep, and usually the sales manager from his area as well.

A few weeks ago, one of the surgeons decided to fly his own plane to New York, and the two local guys flew with him. I was talking about it with John, and he told me that there is actually a company policy in place which forbids people from flying in a customer's private plane on company time.

I thought that this was a very strange rule, and wondered what would have even set the precedent to make such a policy in the first place.

This morning I got an email from my mom, and she told me that a plane had crashed yesterday in Memphis, and that it was a surgeon that was on his way to meet with engineers for the company that I used to work for. The surgeon and one other person were killed, and two other people are in critical condition at the Med.

I pulled up an article, and it turns out to be a very prominent surgeon in the industry that I work in. I don't know the other two people in the plane, but I worked with Ed Brown for eight years. Thankfully, he's one of the two that is still alive.

He is such a sweet man. Looks just like you'd think Santa Claus would look out of his red suit. I haven't been able to get an update on his condition, but I'm praying that he and the other passenger are out of danger soon.

feeling... it's just so sad

miss something?
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a quest for clarity - part 1 - 2004-08-30
no plan for a sequel - 2004-08-27
slacker of the month - 2004-08-26