As Halo Flight broke ground on a new headquarters in Corpus Christi, board member Darrell Nordeen reflected on the day the non-profit saved his life

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Halo Flight, the nonprofit air medical transport service that has served South Texas for nearly four decades, broke ground this week on a new headquarters leaders say will strengthen its ability to save lives across the region.

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The new facility, located on FM 665, is expected to be completed by Christmas 2026 and will include a modern dispatch center designed to better coordinate emergency flights across Halo Flight’s expansive service area.

The organization serves more than 1 million people across 23 counties, responding to emergencies from Laredo to Bay City to the San Antonio area, and everywhere in between. 

CEO Travis Patterson said the dispatch center is one of the most critical — and challenging — parts of Halo Flight’s operations.

“Of the 1,500 calls we get every year, they come into our dispatch center,” Patterson said. “It’s one of the most challenging and difficult jobs in the company. They need to be able to track and control aircraft over a 24,000-square-mile area, and right now we’re doing it in a room that’s very outdated.”

Among those attending the groundbreaking was Halo Flight board member Darrell Nordeen, whose connection to the organization began as a patient.

Nordeen and his wife, Rebecca, recalled the day that changed their lives — Father’s Day in 2000 — when the family was driving home from church.

“We stopped at a stop sign and then pulled out on a little county road over here, 772, and was broadsided by a pickup truck,” Darrell said. “He never hit his brakes, and it went about halfway through the driver’s seat on my side.”

Rebecca and the couple’s young daughter were taken by ambulance to local hospitals with minor injuries. Darrell’s injuries were far more severe.

“I had a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen, six broken ribs and a broken neck in two places — a C2, C3 fracture,” he said.

Darrell spent nearly two months unconscious in the intensive care unit, much of that time in a medically induced coma.

“I was in for about two months unconscious in the ICU — medical coma,” he said. “She stayed by me all the time that she could.”

His recovery took another turn when he developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, a condition doctors warned often proves fatal in adults.

“They told her most adults don’t survive that,” Darrell said, as Rebecca added with a laugh that she had been asked to sign paperwork.

“Kind enough to sign to donate my heart,” Darrell joked. “And everything else,” Rebecca added.

“But the heart was the strong thing,” Darrell said.

That strength, the couple said, carried them through — along with their faith and their partnership. Married for 56 years, Darrell says the secret to that longevity is simple.

“As a man, learn to say ‘yes dear,’” he said, prompting laughter from Rebecca.

Owing Halo Flight his life, Darrell later joined the organization’s board, determined to give back to the service he says made his survival possible.

With construction now underway, Halo Flight leaders say the new headquarters will help ensure faster coordination, better communication and improved outcomes for future patients.

They say the building represents more than bricks and mortar — it represents lives saved, stories continued and families kept whole.