Friends remember ‘extraordinary’ flight nurse who died in air ambulance crash

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Friends and loved ones are remembering one of the victims of the medical transport plane crash off Maui. Colleagues have identified the victim as medical flight nurse Courtney Parry.

Parry and two others were on the plane that went missing last Thursday while enroute to a patient in Waimea on Hawaii Island.

Another pilot saw their medical transport plane crash into the ocean south of Hana, Maui.

“Her daughter said that ‘yes, she was on that plane,’” said the victim’s friend Coren York. “And at that moment, my heart just sank. I was so sad.”

York and Jenn Rose are good friends of Parry — the three friends moved to Maui from the mid-west and worked a nurses.

“It just doesn’t seem real,” said Rose. “That your friend could be there one moment and gone the next in such a tragic way.”

It’s a job that came with a lot of stress, but they said Parry was always a ray of sunshine.

“She just lights up every room that she comes in,” said York.

“It takes someone very special to be a nurse, and it takes someone extraordinary to be a flight nurse,” said Rose.

“I will forever admire her for the courage and bravery,” Rose added.

Rose and York told Hawaii News Now that Parry is from Nebraska. She lived in Maui with her young daughter — a Kindergarten teacher in Kihei.

“They lived together and now her daughter has to find a new place to live because her landlord will not give her a break with the rent even with the holidays,”

In a statement to Hawaii News Now, Parry’s daughter Sydney said:

This was a terrible tragedy but my mom loved to help people. There wasn’t anything she wasn’t willing to do for anyone. We plan on honoring her memory by being selfless and showing love and aloha to everyone. We know that people loved her and we’re going to take that love and spread it around.

A GoFundMe has been started to help Sydney pay rent and find another place to stay. To donate, click here.

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