Tennessean soars to move patients’ test results faster
Nashvillian flies for Angel Flight Soars to move patients’ COVID-19 test results faster
When Nashville entrepreneur Darrell Freeman took off in mid-april for Macon, Georgia, to pick up COVID-19 test samples, he did so without a co-pilot beside him. Social distancing, after all. He made sure to bring a mask, gloves and hand sanitizer.
❚ Just one of many ways this adventure was different. Another was over Atlanta. Usually, Freeman said, he’s instructed to fly around the city to avoid air traffic from the city’s busy airport. Not this time.
❚ “They let me fly directly over Atlanta. That’s very unusual,” Freeman said, “and as I looked down, there were no airplanes at the Atlanta airport taking off or landing. Zero.”
Test samples secured in his Pilatus PC12-NG airplane, Freeman flew them back to Nashville, where quicker lab results were possible. As a result, people in Georgia who might have had to wait days to discover test results found out about eight hours after Freeman landed, he said.
Freeman’s flight was one of many being orchestrated by Angel Flight Soars, an organization that for 37 years has worked with volunteer pilots like Freeman to fly patients and their families — at no cost — for medical treatments as well as other humanitarian missions.
Through various partnerships, Freeman has flown into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to The Bahamas or Puerto Rico after hurricanes and to Haiti after an earthquake.
When approached about last month’s weekend flight to carry COVID-19 test results, he jumped on board. He plans to continue to do them in the future.
“This is not a new activity for me,” Freeman said. “It’s just this time it’s more about specimens than
generators and people and medicines. … It’s very unusual for Americans not to be able to get something as simple as a test. I’ve never seen us on our heels like this.”
Freeman, 55, is uniquely positioned to help in times of crisis because he owns — and pilots — his own airplane. He has been licensed to fly since 1999, and has owned four planes at one time or another.
His is a well-known Nashville entrepreneurial success story. Freeman started an information technology consulting firm after college. He sold that firm, Zycron, Inc., in 2017 to BG Staffing Inc., for more than $20 million.
Freeman now serves on various corporate boards and on the Board of Trustees at Middle Tennessee State University, where he attained bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“A mixture of corporate responsibility and a lot of volunteer and charitable work is what I’m concentrating on today,” Freeman said. “My entrepreneurial career, much of it is behind me. I’m in a position to help.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Freeman said, he hasn’t been collecting rent on his properties in North and East Nashville, helping a list of tenants that includes six families and five businesses.
As with Freeman’s desire to conduct humanitarian flights and his latest run to Georgia, giving back in such a way is important to him.
“I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Neither of my parents graduated from high school,” Freeman said. “I grew up needing help, and there were a bunch of people in my community that helped me. So I understand, regardless of how much success you have in life, that there are always people that need help. I’ve never forgotten that.”