Honorees

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Year Honored
2013
Honoree
David Hines
Title
Organ Procurement Specialist
Agency
Mayo Organ Transplant Team
Agency City
Jacksonville
Agency State
FL
Last Call
12/26/11
Cause of Death
Medical Aviation Accident
Biography
Mr. Hines, 57, trained as a medical services specialist with trauma management experience in the Air Force. He spent almost 30 years as an emergency trauma technician in the Air Force National Guard and retired as a master sergeant from the Florida Air National Guard in 2006. He was deputy rescue chief for the volunteer fire department in Solomons Island, Maryland for three years before joining St. Luke's Hospital in Jacksonville as an emergency room technician in 1999. At St. Luke's, he worked as a patient care technician and an anesthesia technician before transferring to Mayo Clinic's Transplant Center in 2006. He also was a procurement technician for LifeQuest for two years.<br /> <br /> Colleagues say Mr. Hines was a selfless man with an easy smile who cared deeply about his family and his co-workers. He often said he had the best job in the world and called transplant team members his second family. Hines was "always ready to help, anything you needed help with, he would do it," even crawling in a co-workers attic to fix something. "He was never afraid to go the extra mile to get the job done, and he never hesitated to help out any of his colleagues."<br /> <br /> David Hines thrilled at flying, thrived on challenge and loved helping people. He died early in the morning on December 26, 2011 along with Mayo Clinic transplant surgeon Luis Bonilla, M.D., and pilot E. Hoke Smith. They were flying from St. Augustine, Florida to Gainesville, Florida to retrieve a donor heart and transport it to a transplant recipient waiting at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. The helicopter crashed in a remote densely wooded area near Palatka.<br /> <br /> Honored 2013