Ernie gets buckled in for his first flight ever. Photos by Maren Machles.

On the morning of March 30 this year, Ernie Armijo, Jr. was sitting in church with his wife when he received a call from his mother. It was about his son. He was lying down, unconscious and had stopped breathing. They rushed him to the hospital where they discovered he had a hemorrhage on the right side of his brain and two brain ruptures from an aneurysm. He was prepped for surgery and four hours later, Ernie’s son was in recovery. It was expected to take eight months for a full recovery, but the young boy was almost back to his normal self after a month and a half.

Today, Ernie Armijo III is walking, talking and about to go up in his first small airplane thanks to the Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital Long Beach’s annual Discovery Flight program.

“He’s scared, he doesn’t want to go up. He is a bit nervous about the small plane,” Armijo Jr. said. “For one, I think it’s a great privilege for him, and two, he was just stuck in a hospital bed a few months ago and now he gets to sit in a cockpit and hang out with a pilot and see the hospital from an areal view and be able to walk, talk and enjoy himself—I mean, gosh, he is really blessed to be here.”

Discovery Flight celebrates its 13th year in taking pediatric rehabilitation patients on a flight to see Long Beach from above and learn about aviation with experienced pilots, complete with sitting in the co-pilot chair and learning simple maneuvers. The flight’s course begins as it departs from the runway at Long Beach Airport and heads to the Los Angeles River, turns south toward the Queen Mary, then heads west along the coastline. 

“I am actually kind of happy I’m finally getting to do [the Discovery Flight program],” said one of the pilots, Matt Gilles, “because I have seen it over the years as they have been doing it, and seeing the kids come here—some of them a little nervous… But even the nervous ones, when some of them get back, their smile is just so big. It’s just unbelievably big and that’s the feeling that I like.”

Gilles has been flying for ten years and mostly works as a teacher to other pilots.

“This is the best part that I get to see because it’s someone that has no idea about aviation, get them in the plane and let them actually fly the aircraft, get their hands on the controls and let them maneuver it,” Gilles said.

With children and youth being the focus of the event, the program’s youngest participant is six years old, and the oldest is 21. The patients’ diagnoses range from brain injuries to spina bifida to cerebral palsy.

“It becomes a very social thing for them too, when they come back, because they talk to their friends because they have done something different,” Mariana Sena, recreational therapist at the Pediatric Rehabilitation Therapy Department for Miller Children’s said. “Doing the flight puts the phrase, ‘The sky is the limit,’ into reality. Just because they have been through some trauma, they have been through rehab, they are still getting therapy, and even if they don’t go back to what we call ‘normal,’ it should not keep them from doing something they want to do.”

As long as the patients can stand, pass a pivot test and are not a danger to others, they are able to participate. A total of 14 children signed up to fly this past Thursday.

Kadin Nicolau, age 16, suffered a traumatic brain injury but has not allowed this to inhibit him from having these kinds of experiences. This is his third year participating in the flight program.

“The first time we were a little nervous—” Kerri Nicolau, Kadin’s mother says.

“Oh, she was scared!” Kadin adds with a smirk.

“It was fun to see him fly it and he just couldn’t believe he was flying it himself,” Kerri said. “We just thought, ‘Wow, it is not something that we have ever done before, and it is not something we ever thought we would be able to experience.’ It gives him self-esteem and allows him to build confidence and experience the [fun] of it and maybe eventually get into something, you know? He loves engineering type stuff and fixing things.”

Since 2003, the program has taken around 200 kids into the skies above Long Beach.

“It teaches them that they can be more independent. They go up and they fly a plane on their own, which isn’t something even I would think I could do. It just empowers them more it makes them want to do things more on their own,” Miller Children’s Spokesman Caesar Cabada said.