Offers for Final Flight May Be Too Late for Dying Man

Volunteers have offered to fly a terminally ill Defense Department employee home to Massachusetts from California after the Air Force refused a request from the man’s family for a free air-ambulance flight.

But by Tuesday the health of the employee, Avram Brody, had declined to the point where it may be too late for him to make a transcontinental flight, his wife said.

Brody, 25, was diagnosed last year as having terminal brain cancer. The three-year Defense Department computer operator, who lives in Palmdale, sought a free air-ambulance flight to Massachusetts from the Air Force. It would have cost about $29,000 to hire a private air ambulance.

Amy Brody said her husband wanted to return to Massachusetts, where he was born and raised, so he could be among relatives and friends for the last weeks of his life.

Air Force officials refused, even when congressmen and a White House aide were enlisted to help Brody. After the matter received publicity last week, several volunteers offered to provide Brody’s flight home.

“We had a lot of very wonderful people call giving us offers to travel,” Amy Brody said. “But they just don’t feel he can travel any more.”

Brody said she contacted U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) Tuesday and told a staff member that she was no longer requesting Air Force help.

The Air Force said Brody failed to meet criteria for a free ride on several counts: he is not a uniformed serviceman; the flight would have no impact on his chances of survival; and his illness was not caused by his Defense Department work.

“We knew going in that this was unlikely to have a happy ending,” said Brad Pearson, a client advocate for the Massachusetts Office of Handicapped Affairs, who has been working on the Brody case.

Brody received several offers for free flights, Pearson said. A New Hampshire man who read about Brody’s plight contacted a state representative from Brody’s hometown of Norwood, Mass., and offered to fly Brody home. A California-based company also offered a free flight while a Virginia-based medical airlift service was contacted about raising funds for a flight.

Amy Brody, 26, said she did not know if her husband’s condition might improve enough to make a flight possible. Brody has already outlasted the life expectancy given by doctors by several months.

“We had a lot of good Samaritans calling, and it’s nice to know that there are these kind of people in the world,” Amy Brody said.