Many of you may have heard of the EMS helicopter midair collision near Flagstaff, AZ that killed six people a couple days ago. A day before that, another EMS helicopter crashed landed hard in Phoenix, severely injuring two crew members and slightly injuring the pilot.
I have a good friend who, until just recently, was a flight medic in Phoenix. If memory serves, one of the three helicopter EMS services that crashed was a former employer.
You cannot imagine the dread that passed over me as I dialed JB’s cell phone, hoping like hell he’d answer. He didn’t, but (thank God) later checked in with his friends via e-mail.
So instead of JB getting killed, six people from the midair collision died, and a flight nurse critically injured. Six people I don’t know and had no connection to, other than by chosen profession. That includes two patients, including one who had no damned business being flown in the first place.
The wildland firefighter who was being transported in one helicopter had been treated for an anaphylactic reaction to insect bite antivenin.
There is ZERO reason to transport an anaphylactic reaction by helicopter, people.
It’s like crushing a roach with a steamroller. There’s nothing that the flight crew does that a ground crew can’t, and once that treatment is started – on scene – the transport isn’t that time sensitive. Moreover, my sources have it that the insect for which he was given antivenin was a spider.
There is no bite from a North American spider that requires antivenin, and EMS crews certainly don’t carry it. That means this poor man was given the antivenin – possibly inappropriately – in a hospital, and then put in a helicopter and flown to another hospital.
When I was working at Podunk General Hospital, Nail Salon, Tire Repair and Crawfish Hut, we were quite capable of dealing with anaphylactic reactions, and the term definitive care and PGHNSTRACH rarely met in the same sentence. We’d never even think of flying out one of those patients.
It’s just…STOOPID.
*sigh*
I tell you this now…if we in EMS dont find a cure for our Rotoriasis – and that includes ER physicians and trauma surgeons – and start utilizing medical helicopters appropriately, the .gov is going to tell us how to do it, for our own good.
And you know how that usually turns out.
For a more measured take on the subject, go check out Rogue Medic and Too Old To Work, Too Young To Retire.
They do measured responses so much better than I.
