personal

Life Flight

While up in Duluth a kind soul overheard me mention that I love all things that fly, and offered to talk to the pilot of the Duluth Life Flight helicopter to see if I could fly along. The pilot agreed, and I got permission from the medical director. So on Saturday I took call with the Life Flight crew and got to go on a call in the BD117B2. I was up in the library causually reading when the overhead page announced "Life Flight Code 3" (translation: Life Flight is being scrambled for a case), and a moment later by pager told me the same thing. I sprinted to the helicopter area, changed into my nomex jumpsuit, and ran out to the pad and was escorted to the helicopter by the flight nurse. We flew to Hayward, WI, which took about 25 minutes. It's a very pretty area between Duluth and Hayward - few roads, almost no houses, only a few farms, and a guy fishing in a small lake from a canoe. I was riding in the back and facing backwards, so as we started to descend in Hayward I thought we must be crashing, as all I could see is wilderness. We burst intot he hospital, where people looked at us strange. They must have thought we were aliens, seeing as how we descended from the sky in a strange vehicle, were dressed in strange outfits, and spoke a weird language. In the ED we prepared the patient for transport, loaded her up, and fly back to Duluth and took her to the Duluth ED. Very fun, and very crowded.