Mickey Lippy, a flight paramedic with the Maryland State Police, a volunteer firefighter in Owings Mills and a former Hereford High football coach, had recently returned to work from a four-month leave after the birth of his daughter when his medevac helicopter was dispatched to a traffic crash in Waldorf late Sept. 27.

The helicopter picked up two teenage patients and a paramedic from the crash scene at 11 p.m. en route to Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly.

But the copter, Trooper 2, never made it.
 
Early the next morning, in Walker Mill Regional Park in Forestville, police found the helicopter wreckage and four of its five passengers dead, including Lippy. It was the deadliest medevac accident in state history.

Lippy, 34, was a 1992 graduate of Calvert Hall High School, in Towson, where he played center and linebacker on the football team. After playing the sport at Shepherd University in West Virginia, Lippy was hired by current Hereford varsity football coach Steve Turnbaugh as an assistant coach in 1996.

The next year, the Bulls won their first state championship. Lippy stayed for two more years on Turnbaugh’s staff.

“Once he became a paramedic, he couldn’t coach any more because of his schedule,” Turnbaugh said.

Turnbaugh said Lippy’s father, Bruce, was for many years a physical education teacher and coach at Hereford.

“It’s a tragedy,” Turnbaugh said. “He was a great young man, and his father was an institution at our school.”

The death of Lippy stunned his fellow volunteers at the Owings Mills Volunteer Fire Company, of which he had been a member since 1994, said Capt. Kevin Wallett.
 
“This has been very devastating to us. It was a complete shock,” Wallett said, adding that Lippy’s wife, Christina, is also a volunteer medic.
 
“This (station) is his extended family. He definitely had a lot of friends and acquaintances, and true friends. There is not a bad thing you could say about the guy.”

Lippy, who recently moved from Owings Mills to Westminster, became trooper first class for the state police four years ago. He had worked as a flight paramedic since April 2007.

Wallett said becoming a flight paramedic with the state police had been Lippy’s dream ever since starting at the volunteer fire company, where he got his paramedic training.

“That was his lifelong aspiration. He wanted to be a flight medic and definitely did what he wanted to do,” he said.
 
Lt. Andrew Winner, a state police commander at the Westminster barrack, was one of Lippy’s instructors at the state police academy and remembered his personality.

“He was very down-to-earth, very common-sense about things,” Winner said. “He had a great sense of humor.”

Lippy also talked about how being a flight medic was his calling, Winner said.

“He excelled in the academy and you could tell he was committed to becoming one of Maryland’s finest,” Winner said.
 
Doug Heidrick, a classmate of Lippy’s at Calvert Hall said, “Anyone that knew Mickey knew what he would end up doing with his life and career.  He wanted to be a paramedic since the age of 3, after being treated for an arm injury. He loved helping people and he ran bravely into situations most would fear.

"Mickey had a huge heart, an unwavering strength and was a true friend to many of us,” Heidrick said.
 
Also killed in the crash were the pilot, Stephen Bunker, of Waldorf; an emergency medical technician with the Waldorf Rescue Squad, Tanya Mallard of Waldorf, and one of the patients being transported, Ashley Younger, 17, of Waldorf.

The only survivor was Jordan Wells, 18, the second patient being transported.

A viewing will be held Thursday, Oct. 2,  from 2 to 8 p.m. at the Gamber Volunteer Fire Department,  3838 Niner Road, in Finksburg.

Funeral services will be held Friday, Oct. 3, at 11 a.m. at the Gamber station.

Burial will immediately follow the funeral services at Dulaney Memorial Gardens, 200 E. Padonia Road, in Timonium.

Following interment, there will be a wake at the Gamber fire station.

Memorial contributions can be made to the Madison Lippy Trust, Hartford Financial Group, Attn: Mallory, 836 South Main St., Suite 105, Bel Air, MD 21015. Make checks payable to American Funds, and reference Madison Lippy in the memo.

State police are investigating the crash.

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