An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

"It didn't look survivable."

There are the decisions you make and then there are the decisions that make you.

As a young boy in Queens, New York, Dave Greenberg was obsessed with ambulances and fire engines. Visiting his local firehouse as an eight year-old, he decided right then that this was the life for him.

"I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up."

It didn't quite turn out that way. Teenaged Dave joined the Ambulance Corps and a youth programme for fire fighters and saved his first life aged just 13.

"It was scary but it was the best adventure of my life."

His parents pushed him into computer programming and it wasn't until he decided to move to Wellington in 1990 that he found his way back to emergency service work. He jumped at an opportunity to become a crewman on Life Flight - the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and his first flight confirmed that this was where Dave was meant to be.

"It was a night flight over Wellington. Just lifting up into the blackness then coming back in over Wellington city.

"They say your first time is your most memorable and that certainly was for me."

The decision was made and Dave Greenberg spent the next 25 years with Life Flight, operating the winch used to insert and extract people and often on the line himself, a job the crew calls being the 'dope on a rope".

"I loved being the dope on the rope, more than anything else I ever did on the helicopter!"

"I managed to make a life that looking back at, I'm jealous of."

But it's the people he saved that Dave remembers and one rescue in particular stands out. It happened on 25 April 2010 - ANZAC Day.

Dave Greenberg wasn't supposed to be working that day but when asked to cover an overtime shift he agreed straightaway.

His day began with a 5.45am phone call; a Blenheim patient needed transferring to Wellington. The weather wasn't great, with low cloud and poor visibility, so Dave and pilot Harry Stevenson waited for daylight before leaving. But seconds into the flight they're radioed about a search and rescue beacon activated near Pukerua Bay northwest of Wellington. An Air Force Iroquois helicopter was missing. Dave and Harry needed to decide what to do and fast.

This was one of those decisions that make you.

"There's a saying that you're better off making a pretty good decision with 70% of the information than a really good decision with 100% because if you wait for the 100% it's usually too late."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details