Ted Parod, a pioneer in emergency air-rescue service in the Flathead Valley, died Saturday in Columbus of heart failure at age 73.

Parod and Hank Galpin of Kalispell were partners in Mountain West Helicopters and flew for ALERT air ambulance in the 1970s before Kalispell Regional Hospital got its own helicopter.

The death of a logger in Northwest Montana inspired Parod to create an air medical transport service.

“It was probably one of the things he put the most effort into in his entire life and was the most proud of,” Parod’s wife, Debbie, said.

His long career in aviation included not only search-and-rescue operations but also aerial film work, law enforcement support and fighting forest fires. His accomplishments earned him the Montana Outstanding Pilot of the Year Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Marty Boehm, who worked as a flight nurse for ALERT and later ran the program for 12 years, recalled that Parod was always ready at a moment’s notice.

“He never turned down a flight,” Boehm said. “He was always willing to do what needed to be done.

“Ted was really enthusiastic about the program. He was a team player,” Boehm said.

Dr. Van Kirke Nelson, who was among the air-rescue pioneers, recalled in a 2013 interview how Parod and Galpin would land the helicopter in his front yard or at the old hospital in Kalispell to pick him up for rescue missions.

Nelson, a charter member of the ALERT board, recalled how Parod was part of one of the most memorable air rescues in ALERT’s early days when a hiker atop the Ptarmigan Wall in Glacier National Park slipped and fell.

“It was about 3:30 to 4 in the afternoon,” Nelson recalled in the Inter Lake interview last year. “Ted Parod still had the air ambulance with Hank Galpin. We flew to the top of Ptarmigan; he [the injured hiker] was on the Elizabeth Lake side.

The hiker’s companion had hiked to Many Glacier to get help. As the helicopter made a slow circle around looking for a place to set down, “Parod flew 1,500 vertical feet below where he [the hiker] was,” he said. “I said, ‘Ted, what are you doing?’”

The two park rangers they had picked up to locate the hiker had to be dropped off and were forced to hike overnight through the mountains to their cabin in Belly River. And Nelson still remembers the queasy feeling from the dramatic take-off when they “popped over the ridge and dropped like a rock” until Parod got enough momentum to propel the aircraft forward.

Debbie Parod said she has a scrapbook filled with news clippings and documentation of Ted’s many awards and activities through the years with air search-and-rescue work.

“In the very early days he lived right next to the [Kalispell] airport,” Debbie said. “To the day he died, when the phone rang, he was instantly ready to go.”

Heart problems over the past few years prevented him from flying, she added, “but he was a pilot when he looked in the mirror.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.