Recently, 11-year-old Jenna Teachman got some welcome news in her battle against pancreatic cancer: the FDA approved a single-patient clinical trial. But it would require her to travel from her home in Daytona, FL., to Los Angeles, CA, and a commercial flight wasn’t a safe way to travel because Jenna is immunocompromised.
That’s when the industry came together help get her on a business flight for treatment at the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Medicine.
The South Florida Business Aviation Association (SFBAA) holds a charity golf tournament every year, and AeroAngel, which helps arrange travel for critically ill children to access care, has set up information tables at holes on the golf course for the past couple of years, said SFBAA president Scott Ramsden.
At the most recent tournament, AeroAngel executive director and founder Mark Pestal made an appeal on behalf of Teachman, and an anonymous donor offered his Falcon and its crew to fly her and her family to California’s Van Nuys Airport (VNY). The family flew out a few days later and an SUV donated by one of the tournament sponsors, LimoLink, drove them to their hotel.
“It just goes to show you how giving our community is,” said Ramsden, who is vice president of Ramjet Aviation, Inc.
Jenna Teachman’s mother, Kim, posted this message of appreciation on the family’s Go Fund Me page on Nov. 15:
“I don’t even know how to put this into words… but AeroAngel will be flying our family to California on a private jet donated by someone who heard Jenna’s story and wanted to help. I still can’t wrap my head around it. The kindness, the generosity, the love… it’s beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”
On Nov. 25, she posted an update about her daughter’s treatment at the California medical facility:
“We made it to today. Jenna did it. This morning, she officially started Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s multi-agent immunotherapy, a powerful treatment that uses immune-boosting vaccines and NK-cell therapy to help her body fight in a brand-new way. We are praying with everything in us that it’s only up from here. Hope feels a little stronger today. So does faith.”
AeroAngel has completed nearly 500 flights for critically ill children and provided more than $10 million in-kind donations. But Jenna’s situation was unique, Pestal said.
“We’ve arranged flights in a matter of hours, but this one was the first flight fulfilled during a charity event,” said Pestal, a former assistant U.S. attorney and commercial pilot, who founded AeroAngel in 2010. “AeroAngel has received tremendous support from the business aviation community for helping with flights for children with no safe way to access distant, lifesaving medical care. It’s a caring community, but they just need to know of opportunities to help.”
