``I hope,'' she told the audience, ``that I can find the strength to do this.''

Such was the emotion flowing through the crowd of 1,400 friends, family members and colleagues at Lexington's Immanuel Baptist Church yesterday at a memorial for the University of Kentucky helicopter ambulance crew members who died in a crash Monday night.

Speaker after speaker, many fighting back tears, recalled and celebrated the contributions and sacrifice of pilots Don Greene, 46, and Ernest L. Jones Jr., 48; flight nurse Sheila Zellers, 43; and paramedic Brian Harden, 31. Each speaker told a different story, but all agreed that the four had given their lives while trying to help others.

``Let us smile ... let us laugh ... let us cry, as we remember them,'' said Stewart Dawson, chaplain of the Lexington Division of Fire and Emergency Services, who gave the opening prayer and introduced each participant.

The four were killed only minutes after taking off from Julian Carroll Airport at Jackson on a routine flight back to Lexington at the end of their regular 12-hour shift. The cause of the accident -- the first fatal air medical crash in Kentucky -- remains unknown.

Dozens of paramedics, emergency medical technicians, nurses and pilots -- representing emergency medical services from across Kentucky and several nearby states -- came to honor their fallen colleagues and to offer support for their families. Many wore the distinctive flight suits and uniforms of their trade in colors of navy blue, powder blue, green and gray.

The most dramatic moment came at the end of the proceedings, as nine helicopter ambulances -- representing air medical services from Lexington, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chattanooga, Tenn., Huntington, W.Va., and Evansville, Ind. -- flew over the church in an aerial salute. The ninth machine, from St. Joseph Hospital's CareFlight service, peeled off from the others and flew into the distance alone, executing a helicopter version of the Air Force's ``missing man'' formation.

``In EMS, everybody is one big family, I don't care which end of the state you're from,'' State Paramedic Coordinator Virginia Shumate said in an interview. ``We take care of our own.''

Frank Butler, director of UK Hospital, told the victims' families that ``our hearts and prayers are with you.'' And Butler insisted that the crash will not mean the end of UK's Air Medical Service, which has been flying since 1987.

``Our commitment to our patients is not deterred,'' Butler said. ``Our four colleagues gave their lives in service to their patients. We owe it to them, and to our patients, to continue.''

UK officials have not decided, however, whether to replace the lost helicopter or carry on with their one remaining air ambulance. That aircraft was parked, symbolically, in front of the church on Tates Creek Road during yesterday's service.

`We are all beneficiaries' 

Greene, of Somerset, was remembered by Jim Waters, a mechanic with Petroleum Helicopters Inc., the Louisiana firm that leases helicopter ambulances to UK. Waters said he met Greene in flight school, and they remained friends. He noted that Greene was a mechanic who could repair as well as fly a helicopter.

``He had flying on his mind,'' Waters said. ``He had a smile that would wake you up in the morning. It's going to be very hard to go back to work without him.''

The Rev. Bob Rush of Drake's Creek Baptist Church in Lincoln County said simply: ``I loved Brian Harden.''

Rush, who presided at the wedding of Harden and his wife, Patty, recalled the Richmond paramedic as a man who ``loved his work and cared about people. God was so good to let us get to know him.''

At one point, Rush spoke directly to Patricia Harden, saying, ``He was a good husband, Patty. He really loved you.'' Patricia Harden is expecting the couple's third child in December.

Rush spoke of what might have gone through Harden's mind just before the crash.

``I don't really know, but I can imagine. He probably thought of you, Patty, and he probably thought of Kennedy and Bailey (their daughters). He probably thought of God, and may have whispered a prayer.

`` ... I think I know what he heard ... The last thing he heard, I think, was Jesus saying, `Don't worry Brian. I've got you in my arms.'''

Jim Schuetzler, a pilot for Petroleum Helicopters in Cleveland, told of his all-too-brief friendship with Jones, who was from the Cleveland area.

``In three short years he was a better friend to me than some people I have known all my life,'' Schuetzler said. ``He helped take care of my family. He was always there when I needed to talk.

``Thank you, Ernie. Tell God I said hello.''

The Rev. Art Hatfield, pastor of Clarkson Baptist Church in Grayson County, recalled Zellers, a Leitchfield native and Elizabethtown resident, as a ``daring adventurous type,'' willing to take risks to help others.

``We are all beneficiaries in some way or other, of those, like Sheila, who occupy professions that require them to put their lives at risk in order to protect and help their fellow human beings,'' Hatfield said. ``And so I know that all of you here will want to join me in saying thank you to this crew, who gave their lives in the line of duty.''

Hatfield offered comfort to the families of the victims who, he said, had been through ``a terrible nightmare.''

``Your night may seem rather lengthy,'' he said. ``But just remember that morning will come, and better days are ahead.''

Swartz, UK's director of trauma and emergency transport, remembered all four crash victims as professionals dedicated to a tough but rewarding job.

``We have been fortunate to know them,'' Swartz said. ``They each had a music in their lives that resonated in all of us. They have sown seeds that we will tend, nurture and harvest in our hearts.''

Next came a slide show -- accompanied by Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On -- showing the four lost crew members at work and at play with their families. It concluded with a quotation from John 15:13: ``Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.''

The crowd then filed out into the midday sunshine to the sound of bagpipes played by Capt. James Kuchenbrod and paramedic Carolyn Cook of the Louisville Fire and Rescue Pipe and Drums. The selections were Will You Not Come Back Again, The Battle's O'er, Going Home and Amazing Grace.

With EMS crews standing at attention, the families were ushered to the parked UK helicopter, in front of which stood a table with four flight helmets, four red roses and a silent radio.

Then, Dawn Wheatley, a dispatcher with Louisville's STATCARE air ambulance service, keyed the microphone of her radio to give the symbolic ``last call'' for the lost crew.

``This is the final call for UK-2, helicopter 43-Echo,'' Wheatley said, her voice breaking. ``Units 202; 203; 204; 205. God bless you, my friends.