Aaah, I see. Heck, if an ‘unloaded’ helo (I think they’re relatively light, compared to the media’s helos) can try it, why couldn’t a moderately loaded down media chopper do it?
As jrfranchi points out, it’s still very dangerous, but I imagine it’s still possible given the weather, site conditions, and nerves of the pilot.
Tripler
At least I know my memory isn’t failing me. 
I will concede in fairness, that if the pilot is confident in his skill and hopefully has some firefighting or combat experience and the passengers are asked first and the victim looks to be in immediate danger: It would be worth it to risk a rescue from a news copter.
I’m not conceding a lot, but I am conceding it would be possible and not nuts under some situations.
I was watching the (Australian) news last night and the reporter had a found two Australian couples in New Orleans. They were interviewed and had said that the Australian government were unable to give them any help unless the Americans invited them in, so they were stranded along with everyone else. The news team took both couples out of town with them. It wasn’t clear whether they were driven or flown out.
Whether or not that’s true, it’s not comparable. In below-zero water, survival is measured in seconds. On rooftops, it’s measured in days.
Mr. Legend worked with Robinson Helicopter on the design of helicopters for the news market (he does things I don’t completely understand with control systems for helicopter-mounted cameras), and they used R-44s. Those helicopters cannot carry more than 4 people, including the pilot, and with the news equipment inside, it might be fewer. So those particular ones could maybe carry one or two extra people, but they are far too light to balance while pulling a person up. I don’t think the Bell Rangers are much bigger.
Mr. Legend’s main question about what the news services are doing for the people there is why they aren’t assisting in police communications, since they have aircraft radios. He says dispatchers could be sent up in police helicopters and act as an airborne dispatch center. He also thinks it would have been a fairly simple matter to put police transmitters in the news helicopters themselves, maybe by Tuesday night, and the police on the ground would have been able to communicate. News helicopters also typically have GPS receivers, so they could have overlaid that information on their video, helping rescuers to map the specific location of survivors.
Depends on the “traffic pilot”. There was a traffic pilot here in the St. Louis by the name of Alan Barklage. Someone had fallen out of their boat in the Mississippi River and he used the down-draft of his helicopter to “blow” them to shore. Of course, he also flew helicopters in Viet Nam so had an incredible amount of stick time, knew what he was doing and knew what his aircraft was and was not capable of.
Just cause he’s a neurosurgeon doesn’t mean he’s incapable of giving any other medical treatment.
I haven’t had the pleasure of flying an R-44, but I learned to fly helicopters in the R-22 Beta. Robinsons are very light helicopters. Most broadcasters use A-Stars or JetRangers (both of which are turbine-powered), but R-44s (piston-powered) are showing up more and more because they are so economical. Weight and balance are rather narrow in helicopters. Unlike airplanes, helicopters also have lateral W&B envelopes.
Of course not, but as a specialist it has probably been a very long time (say, during his residency) since he has set a broken bone, dealt with a septic arm wound, etc. It’s kind of like expecting a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions to do your estate planning.
I was watching some reporter who was interviewing stranded residents of New Orleans–including more than a few mothers with young children. All of them were complaining of the lack of transport out of the city, and the lack of food and water, but all I could think of was whether the 20-something white reporter was going to be able to help any of the people he was interviewing.
On the one hand, I realize that he and the camera person may have simply ridden a news helicopter to the site, and didn’t think to bring any extra water or food. But I HOPE that they at least had the compassion to come back later with supplies to help these people.
At the same time, I kept thinking that these were mothers with children. As a mother myself, I think I would have taken my kids and run to some kind of shelter with them at the first mandatory evacuation order, even if it meant having to get there by foot. After the fact, I certainly would have walked to the nearest refuge agency with my kids if a bus didn’t appear soon afterwards.