Dale Lee is convinced his son Brandon is only alive today because of Bermuda Air Medivac (BAM).Brandon, now 28, crashed his motorcycle while driving home during a bad storm in September 2010.He had no visible injuries that night but the next day he visited King Edward VII Memorial Hospital with what he thought was a cracked rib.Doctors discovered a ruptured spleen and he was checked in. Within a week, according to his father, “they found leakage in his belly. When they operated on him, the surgeon came out and told me that he was in really bad shape. Part of his small intestine and bowel had died and he had septicaemia”.“It's a death sentence,” says Dale. “There's no question about that.”It was decided Brandon needed specialist treatment overseas and should be airlifted off the Island fast, as Hurricane Igor was approaching Bermuda.The stress was compounded, says Dale, due to problems with his son's health insurance.At one point, it was touch and go whether the insurers would pay for the $18,000 BAM flight to Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts but eventually the issue was resolved.At that point, according to Dale, BAM vice president and chief flight nurse Eloise Bell “took charge of Brandon's life”.He couldn't have been more impressed with how she and her assistant cared for his son on the trip to the US.“They put me in the back of the plane with the oxygen bottles. I sat and watched and that woman's hands never left that kid's body.”Choking back tears, Dale says: “It's kind of emotional, sorry. Brandon is my twin, he's my best friend. Every father hopes to have a kid like him.”He continues: “Eloise Bell was just totally in charge. She just gave off this air of complete confidence.”His son was put into an induced coma for a week at Lahey and stayed in the hospital for treatment until the end of October.Brandon has since had further surgery there and has recovered well.He is working as a bartender at the Frog and Onion pub at Dockyard and says: “It's such an accomplishment for me, because I'm doing something I love that I never thought I could do again. I feel healthy as a horse.”Dale, who owns audio-video company Digital Digs, says the handlebar of his son's bike is thought to have caused his deep internal injuries.The grateful father claims: “He wouldn't have lived if it wasn't for Eloise Bell. I feel that with the impending storm and the way things were going, that if Brandon had not been airlifted that day, he would not have survived.“He was that sick. We were told a plane would not be able to come in because of the impending storm.“If the Island had shut down, then we wouldn't have been able to get him out. This is why the air ambulance is so, so important. Bermuda was in a state of emergency.“Do I believe that if the air ambulance wasn't available, Brandon wouldn't have survived? I believe that with all my heart and soul. I was there; I saw it all.”Brandon remembers nothing of the flight to Lahey but is immensely grateful to Ms Bell and BAM.“I went back to the hospital and they said ‘if we didn't get you out of here, it wasn't going to be good'.“Eloise just has that way about her; she's very calming. I could only imagine my father at that point. He needed someone there that could really boost him and that goes a long way.”Brandon's mother Maureen Lee, who lives in Rhode Island, adds: “They did a lot of good things in the Bermuda hospital; the doctors were excellent.“But Brandon needed specialist treatment and the air ambulance was a godsend. I don't know if we'd be having this conversation if it wasn't for that.”