Helicopter Paramedics, What Do They Do?

     What is being a helicopter paramedic all about?  Probably a lot more than you would think.  In a podcast from slate.com, David Plotz interviews Jeff Ennis, a helicopter paramedic.  Ennis gives a detailed insight to what it is like being a helicopter paramedic and what exactly the job entails.

     First off, the shifts are extremely long and exhausting.  Each shift is 24 hours long, 24 hours off, 24 hours back on and then off for 5 days.  Ennis says that there is a lot of prep work to be done before each shift.  Before a shift even begins he needs to do some meal prep of good meals he can have while on the clock.  When he arrives to work, he meets with the off-coming crew to debrief about what happened in the previous shift.  Then the new crew goes out to the aircraft where they follow a very detailed check off sheet to make sure everything is set and ready to go for the next call.  The pilot then comes in to have a short meeting with the crew, he does a risk assessment, reviews emergency procedures, makes sure everyone gets enough rest, talks about the weather and discusses any advisories that may be in the area.  After this short meeting, from about 8:00-10:00am it is very rare that they would get a call so Ennis says he tries to take a nap for a few hours during this time.  He never knows when he will be needing to work into the late hours at night, so he sleeps when he can.

    Along with resting, the crew does have ongoing education and trainings they must complete when not attending to a patient.  While they are resting, or training, they are waiting for a call to come in.  As soon as they receive a call, within 8 minutes they are in the air headed to the scene.  When they arrive on the scene, they usually have little to no information on the patient so they must do a quick assessment and decide where to take them.  Sometimes it is predetermined where to take the patient.  Once the patient is delivered to the hospital, or where ever they need to go, the staff there takes over.  Ennis says that he gets signatures from the staff saying they received the patient and have taken over.

     Something I found particularly interesting is that Ennis says that he likes to keep an impersonal relationship with the patients.  It's easier for him to get his job done if there is not an emotional attachment.  Ennis says that he "just shows up and does his job."  He makes sure that he does everything to the best of his ability so that if he does end up losing a patient, he know he did everything he could and the result was out of his hands.

     I think that being a helicopter paramedic is an exceptionally admirable job.  These men and women work so hard to do everything in their power to help their patients.  Not many people know everything that is involved in this job and how truly tiring it can be.  I think it is awesome that these people work so hard every time they report for duty and the world really is a better place because of them.

Until next time...

Camille