MADISON, Wis. — Confusion over memorial funds for the three victims in Saturday night’s Med Flight helicopter crash has prompted UW Health to take down a Web site initially set up for donations.
UW Health said would-be contributors were upset that money could be going to the UW Foundation and not according to the wishes of the victims’ families.
“We’ve pulled the information that could in any way be misunderstood,” said UW Health spokesperson Lisa Brunette. “It was never our intention to cause confusion, so we’ve taken down the Web site.”
UW Health set up a link to the UW Foundation so contributions could be made to a memorial for Dr. Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne and pilot Steve Lipperer, killed Saturday night when the UW Hospital Med Flight helicopter they were flying in crashed near La Crosse after bringing a patient to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse.
UW Health was inundated with calls from people wanting to make donations, which prompted UW Health to set up the Web site.
Later on, UW Health learned that the Bean family wanted contributions made in Darren Bean’s name for an education fund for his family’s children, and Lipperer’s wife wanted memorials made to the Dane County Humane Society.
“We had no idea how the families wanted to proceed,” Brunette said.
Any money already donated through the UW Foundation Web site will be distributed according to the wishes of the victims’ families, Brunette said.
