Video: Part I: Flying With AirCare 3 Crew Members

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Medical flight crews know they help the most seriously injured patients and must work quickly to keep them alive.

Every University of Mississippi Medical Center helicopter is staffed by a highly-skilled, three person team.

Each day, the AirCare 3 crew I went up with, will reach heights of seven-thousand feet and race more than one-hundred miles per hour to a scene.

It can be stressful and rewarding.

“You have to think on your own. You do not have a physician, it is you and your partner in the back of this aircraft and you’ve got to figure it out,” says AirCare 3 flight nurse, Shyann Shirley.

Quick thinking is just one job requirement to be a flight nurse, but Shirley knew she wanted to be in this seat at an early age.

“My sister, you know, got flown out when I was about 15. Sadly, it was a tragic ending, but to see that aircraft come and get her and bring services that were not available at that hospital, you know, so, they gave her the chance that she needed, so that’s why I wanted to do this job.”

Each crew member has certifications that keep them in the air, going to the patient to provide life saving treatment.

“Most everything that we are capable of doing in the ER, we have in our aircraft or have access to it that we can bring to the patients and we can do it on the ground, in the ambulance, in the local ER’s, ICU, or during transport,” says AirCare 3 RN and critical care paramedic, Ben Foley.

While flying through the clouds of Mississippi, these medical professionals can perform some treatments hospitals don’t have the necessary technology in place.

“The biggest thing that makes us different, is we can place chest tubes, we carry Kcentra, which most hospitals don’t even have. We can take CroFab to you, the anti-venom. We are able to ultrasound you. We can place arterial lines and monitor those,” says Shirley.

Once the call comes in, the blades on the helicopter start turning and the crew takes off; they don’t know anything about the patient.

“The reason for that is, is we don’t want to pull on heartstrings to jeopardize safety. If there’s a child that we could be flying, that might make that pilot make a different decision, than he would if it’s not a child, someone who doesn’t remind him of his kid at home,” says AirCare 3 lead pilot, Pat Glandon.

Whether they are in the pilot’s seat, or sitting next to an injured person, every crew member helps keep each other safe.

“We brief every morning. We debrief on every flight to talk about what went well, what didn’t go well, and what we can improve upon. We all hold each other accountable and the medical crew members are just that, they’re crew members, so they have the ability to stop a flight at any point that it becomes unsafe, or they see something maybe that I don’t,” says Glandon.

The average transport time for AirCare 3 is about 45 minutes.

On Thursday, on part two of this series, we talk about why there’s a growing number of medical helicopter companies in the area.