Helicopter wows the kids at Safety Town

LAURINBURG─ Screams of excitement filled the air during Thursday morning’s United Way of Scotland County’s annual Safety Town as the Cape Fear Valley Health Life Link helicopter landed in the parking lot of Laurinburg Presbyterian Church.

Each year the United Way hosts Safety Town for children ages four and five to teach them safe habits before going to preschool, but this year Laurinburg Fire Chief Jordan McQueen wanted to do something a little different.

“The kids see the same thing over and over with the fire truck so a helicopter really gets their excitement up and teaches them something new,” McQueen said. “We’ve been utilizing Valley Air for PR events … I have a good relationship with them and since they’re relatively new I’ve been trying to help get them out in the public.”

McQueen added by bringing them out to events like this helps both the kids and adults get an up-close look at the helicopters, which typically wouldn’t happen.

“Helicopters now are automatically paged on traumatic incidents with EMS and also high mechanism motor vehicle accidents,” McQueen said. “So everyone is seeing helicopters all the time in Laurinburg now so the more we can get them out and show everyone what they do the better. It’s just a flying ambulance, back in the day if you needed a helicopter it was bad but now it’s just a quicker way to get you to a trauma center to get the proper care.”

The helicopter was also a surprise for United Way Executive Director Coy Moody, who hadn’t known the landing would be a part of this year’s Safety Town until the last minute.

“This was a total surprise to the kids and even me,” Moody said. “Every year we have the firefighters come out but Jordan came by yesterday and said ‘I hope you’re okay with me dropping a helicopter here tomorrow.’ I’ve done Safety Town for about four years and this was a first for me, I was just as excited as the kids.”

One of the children that got to excitedly watch the helicopter land was 5-year-old Jaxton Hunt, who after it landed told Moody “you are the most awesome people ever.”

“This day was cool,” Hunt said. “I thought it was going to land over there and that it was looking for someone. I was excited when it landed here.”

Moody added she was glad to get to do something different for the kids, who are still getting used to interacting after the pandemic.

“We had about 50 kids, which is down a bit from last year but we did hold it later in the summer last year,” Moody said. “The kids are super excited to be here, I think having gone through the pandemic and not being out a lot this is a good release for them. It’s good to be able to get them back out and out getting to see some of the community helpers to help eliminate the fear some of them might have towards police officers or firefighters.”

Organizations that partook in Safety Town include the Laurinburg Police Department, Scotland County Sheriff’s Office, the Red Cross, Bob Dean, Scotland County Humane Society, and Laurinburg Fire Department.

“I really want to thank everyone who came out,” Moody said. “From my volunteers to the agencies and community partners they’re the ones who make this program special and the reason we’re able to have it each year.”