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Saturday, June 13, 2009
Memorial for Tingwall Set for Monday
Journal Staff Report
A memorial service will be held Monday for the State Police officer who died after an attempted helicopter rescue mission of a missing hiker in the Santa Fe Ski Area.
Sgt. Andrew Tingwall, 36, will be remembered at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport's Hangar G at 10 a.m. Tingwall was a pilot who had logged 1,300 flying hours.
Tingwall — a 13-year State Police veteran — was piloting the chopper when it crashed into Santa Fe Baldy on Tuesday evening after he picked up University of New Mexico graduate student Megumi Yamamoto. Both Tingwall and Yamamoto were found dead by search and rescue teams Thursday afternoon.
Officer Wesley Cox — Tingwall's spotter on the Yamamoto rescue mission — survived after he was able to walk a mile from the crash site to reach searchers Wednesday morning. Cox continues to recover at Christus-St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where he is recovering from injuries, according to Lt. Eric Garcia.
"He's pretty bruised up and in the best of spirits he possibly could be," Garcia said. "He just wishes Sgt. Tingwall was in the bed next to him."
As for Yamamoto, the Graduate and Professional Students Association at UNM issued a statement Friday about their fallen peer, who was a physics graduate student and teaching assistant from Japan.
"Megumi's passage is a loss to the entire graduate student community at UNM," said association president Lissa Knudsen. "Our organization is here to support all of our members, especially international students, as well as those in the Physics and Astronomy Department, as they go through this difficult time."
Counseling services are available for UNM students at the Student Health and Counseling Center.
A memorial for Yamamoto — whose family lives in Japan — has not yet been planned.
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