Missions of Mercy

A MARIN ATTORNEY and private pilot named Robert Mills has turned his love of flying into a passion for service. As part of a national organization called Angel Flight, he has used his plane on these missions of mercy:

- A newborn baby needed to be flown from Reno to Las Vegas in a pressurized plane for a heart transplant. "She was already turning blue," he recounts.

- A wounded Marine just home from Iraq wanted to see his family - but had no means to get from his base at Camp Pendleton to his home in southern Wyoming. Mills flew him there - and back. "The whole town had turned out when we taxied in. There were balloons and lots of cameras," he says.

- A Wichita, Kan., man dying of cancer wanted to see his daughter and grandchild one last time: Mills flew them from Vacaville to Kansas for a three-day reunion. "You have touched many lives with your gift," William Moore wrote to Mills from Wichita. "We will never forget it." Moore died a few weeks later.

Most of Mills' Angel Flights - about one a month, sometimes more - have served medical patients who needed to be flown from remote areas to urban hospitals and clinics for specialized treatment. Some have been spur-of-the moment flights for organ transplants that needed to be done in a matter of hours.

All have been in the name of helping others: "This has been a wonderful way to combine my passion for aviation with a way to help people in need of a break."

Mills, a resident of Kent Woodlands and a pilot for six years, joined Angel Flight three years ago. He flies at least twice a week, as often as possible on missions of mercy.

There are flights for fun, too, though.

Mills has put his plane at the service of several charities, which auction his services for significant bids. A few weeks ago, a parent at Marin Academy placed the winning bid to have Mills fly three young Marin women, all models, to Las Vegas for a high-end weekend - dining out with celebrities and visiting backstage with the cast of MTV's "The Real World."

"I had never heard of 'The Real World,'" says Mills, "but I had a blast, I have to tell you. I got to see a world I've never seen."

And two weeks ago, he and his wife, Miriam, took their two Little Sisters, residents of Novato and part of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Marin mentoring program, on a flying trip to Alaska "to see the bears. We did a stopover in Vancouver."

Mills' secretary, Val Klussman, describes her boss as a lover of life, "always so enthusiastic and passionate about things." In her mind, his work for Angel Flight makes him a hero, but Mills, a 53-year-old father of three, says, "I'm having too much fun to be a hero."

Born in North Carolina, Mills moved to California to enroll in the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in philosophy before attending Golden Gate University Law school. As an attorney, he headed a law firm of 29 attorneys at Drake's Landing, specializing in class-action lawsuits, before going into semi-retirement in 1995. He now contracts with other law firms to handle cases, using his Malibu Mirage plane to serve clients and take depositions all over the West.

When his children - Michelle, 17, Jan, 23, and Rob, 20 - were growing up, he and his wife took them on frequent trips to hike and camp in wilderness areas throughout California. It was while returning from one such weekend trip by car that he spotted a small airplane in the sky and had an epiphany: "I could fly us on trips, and we wouldn't have to drive 10 hours each way."

The next morning he showed up at Gnoss Field in Novato for flying lessons, and "I've been flying the wings off airplanes ever since."

For a while he rented planes, then bought a Saratoga of his own. But at high altitudes, passengers needed to wear oxygen gear, something his wife, a former hospital administrator, found uncomfortable. So he traded the Saratoga for his current plane, which has a pressurized cabin and is loaded with safety gadgets.

The pressurized cabin not only pleases his wife but also makes his plane a natural for medical flights of patients who have difficulty breathing.

The gadgetry makes his plane one of the safest in the sky. A collision avoidance system informs him of every plane in the air within six miles, and a weather scope lets him know of electrical storms in a radius of 200 miles. "I can never get lost -I have five different navigation systems. They're nice to have -in the dark, or if you're closed in by clouds." (Yes, he says, he is "a gadget kind of person.")

His new plane - 32 feet long, with a 43-foot wing span - allows him to make longer flights. "It cuts down the need for relay flights, transferring the patient from one plane to another."

Mills became an Angel Flight member by chance, after he spotted the organization's Web site online. He saw right away that there was a need: Sick people who live in remote areas, even when they have medical insurance, often can't afford the cost of transportation to far-off medical centers for treatment. "The mother of a 17-year-old girl with an exotic melanoma lives in Roseburg, Ore. She is the sole support of four kids (the father is dead)." Mills flies mother and child to the University of California at San Francisco for treatment whenever it is required.

Angel Flight pilots are also on call when organ transplants become available on a few hours' notice. "We grab 'em and fly 'em in," says Mills.

"I thought this would be a wonderful way to give back," he goes on. "Angel Flight helps people who might otherwise fall through the cracks."

His services have proven life-altering to many. "One mother last week said, 'If it wasn't for this, we would have been destroyed.' Another said, 'My family would have been lost. What would we have done?'"

Sadie Clark of Redding, 53, says Mills has literally been a lifesaver for her: A widow, she broke her hip and femur and ruptured two discs in her spine. "I needed treatment at UC Davis Medical Center, but I had no way to get there." She applied to Angel Flight (which requires verification of need from a doctor) and was assigned to a flight with Mills.

"Now he flies me to Davis every couple of months," she says. "I had developed osteomeningitis, and literally could have died. He carried me onto the plane when I couldn't walk. He is a wonderful, wonderful man, so wonderful and kind, and I will never forget him."

Most of his patients are ambulatory, Mills says, although some are hooked up to intravenous lines - IVs. Each patient is accompanied by a mission assistant - a standby caregiver - who in some cases has been Mills' mother, 79-year-old Betsy Mills of Novato, who also volunteers for the task. She "loves to chat people up," her son says. "She's a very empathetic, sweet kind of person, and people love her."

Being an assistant, she says, gives her a chance not only to help people, but also to enjoy flying time with her son. And because they are so comfortable in the air, she says, "I think it alleviates any discomfort patients may feel about flying. The countryside from up there is so beautiful."

Angel Flight pilots donate their time and the cost of flights, but the organization itself needs financial help to pay for schedulers and back-up staff.

Angel Flight West - serving 11 Western states, Hawaii and Alaska - has about 800 active pilot members (and twice that many who are inactive); the organization has flown 2,000 missions so far this year and expects to fly 3,000 by year's end.

Mills says he has every intention of continuing his Angel Flights - one more excuse to keep his plane in the air.

"In the past four years, I've flown a quarter of a million miles - and every one of them has been a joy."

HOW TO HELP

Robert Mills urges potential contributors to get in touch with Angel Flight at 3237 Donald Douglas Loop S., Santa Monica 90405, at info@angelflight.org, or through a toll-free number, 888-4-AN-Angel.