Mike Durant

And so I go work with him and get to go flying on a helicopter with him.

He's since passed away.

Joe Brigham's his name.

We're over Mount Washington, which is the highest mountain in the Northeast.

It's 6,280 feet.

Feels like we're hovering.

We're probably not hovering, but flying slowly enough where it feels like we're hovering.

And we're in a glass bubble.

It's sort of an old-school helicopter, you know.

And, I mean, I could just see it all around me, and I'm just in awe.

do i not know this now i feel like it's this technology we're working on that so uh you know we're over this mountain and i'm looking at him like and he starts talking about how yeah you know i learned how to fly in the army and you know this is this is my job and you could do it too if you wanted to and i'm like hell yeah i want to this is this is absolutely what i want to do

So I worked with him that summer.

And even though, you know, we did one mission where there'd been a small private plane that crashed into the mountains and we had to recover the remains of the aircraft.

There's blood all over the cockpit.

You know, I had hiked in and we took the airplane apart and he came in and slung it out.

Even, you know, seeing sort of the worst of aviation where there's a fatality didn't really discourage me.

I just thought, you know, that would never happen to me.

That was, you know, just not even thinkable that that would ever occur.

Yeah, I mean, we hiked in on the ground, supporting him, took the plane apart,

And so he could sling it out.