Soaring on wings like eagles

Medevac crews deliver quick service on North Olympic Peninsula

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Whether on a field, a highway or in a zoo, the pilots at Life Flight Network can land their medevac helicopters just about anywhere.

“You do land in random spots,” said night pilot Bob Loyd. “Who knows? Wherever a helicopter can fit and it doesn’t take much space.”

For Loyd, the strangest LZ, helicopter lingo for landing zone, he ever used was a buffalo enclosure.

While a pilot for a separate company in the Midwest, Loyd and his crew were dispatched after receiving a report of a bear attack in urban Illinois.

Loyd said he was skeptical such an attack had taken place. That all changed when the GPS coordinates he received centered on a zoo.

“We landed right there in the enclosure with a herd of buffalo and they sent a couple of people in there and said if they make enough racket they will stay away from the helicopter and we will pick them up there.”

Day pilot Matt Hill recently spent a night in a farmer’s field when the weather took a turn for the worse.

“That was a trip,” he said. “We weren’t going to make it home.”

Luckily, the owner of the farm was a gracious host and gave the crew both dinner and breakfast before they left the following morning, Hill said.

Hill became a medevac pilot while in the Army National Guard, which he joined after completing his tour of duty with the United States Marine Corps.

He joined the army in 2003 and spent nine months flying a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq.

“I only got shot at one time,” he said. “Other than that, nothing crazy. I never had to go into any hot LZs, but you are always watching.”

Loyd got his training in the civilian world.

“When I was growing up, my mom was a flight medic,” he said. “I used to get helicopter rides back in the early 80s. They would drop the patient off and go to get fuel. They would take me to go get the gas with them.”

After high school, Loyd went to flight school and has been a medevac pilot for the past two decades.

He said after more than twenty years in the cockpit, flying a helicopter is no more difficult than driving a car.

That is not to say he can let his mind wander.

“In an airplane, you can let go of everything and it will go straight,” Loyd said. “In a helicopter, you can’t let go, unless the autopilot is on, because it will just go upside down in a second. You always keep your right hand on the stick.”

It is like balancing a pen on the end of your finger, he said.

“It is really tricky. Well, it takes about 20 to 25 hours to learn how to hover a helicopter, so if you practice balancing a pen on your finger for 25 hours you are going to be pretty good at it even in wind and while doing something else.”

Unlike in a fixed-wing aircraft, a helicopter pilot sits in the starboard side of the cockpit. Their right hand is always on the cyclic stick mounted to the side of the pilot seat. The cyclic stick, which looks similar to a joystick, controls the main rotor to change the helicopter’s direction of movement. While hovering, the cyclic controls whether the helicopter moves forward, backward or laterally.

“Your left hand is the free hand,” Loyd said. “They want you to be able to touch all the stuff with your left hand versus if you were sitting in the left seat.”

In that case, the pilot would have to reach with their right hand to flip switches and controls.

“I have tried flying with the left hand, picking up and hovering, and I can’t do it.”

Medical crew

While it is up to the pilot to fly the helicopter, the accompanying flight nurse and medic see to the patients being transported. In many cases, the patients are in critical condition.

“We do advanced procedures nurses would never do in the hospital or we normally wouldn’t do in the hospital such as intubations and chest tubes,” said Flight Nurse Dan Baldwin.

In a hospital, physicians would carry out that higher level of care, he said. Since no physicians are on the medevac, it is up to the flight nurse.

The flight crews also work with patients of all ages, something not common in hospitals which have dedicated departments for geriatrics, adults and children.

“Here, you never know what you are going to get,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin’s partner, Flight Paramedic Lori Moorison, recently joined Life Flight Network after 20 years working out of an ambulance in Clark County.

“There are different things I am doing, for instance running more ventilators over a longer distance,” she said. “Oftentimes there are more severe cases.”

Jake Dalstra, Life Flight Network Regional Director and paramedic, said while the operating space is different, the thrill of saving lives is the same, whether on the ground or up in the air.

“It is just a good feeling to be able to help people who are in need and being able to provide this service to the community.”

The defining element of an air ambulance is the time it takes to transport patients over long distances, Dalstra said.

Before Life Flight opened up a base in Port Angeles, patients had to wait for a helicopter to come from Bremerton or the Seattle area, he said.

“Now that the aircraft is here in Port Angeles, it is able to service Clallam County and Jefferson County. We are able to help people more quickly.”

As the crow flies

The major advantage of transportation in a helicopter is moving in a straight line from A to B, Loyd said.

“Our flight right now from Kelso to Port Angeles was exactly one hour of flight time. I did that drive last time and it took me five hours because you stop for gas and are winding around a country road.”

In addition, a ground ambulance could be delayed by traffic jams or deer jumping out in the road, Loyd said.

And, just as with four-wheel ambulances, medevac units receive high priority in the air.

“We have a squawk code we put in here and it tells the air traffic controllers what we are doing and lets them know we are a medical flight,” Loyd said. “It is kind of like lights and sirens for police and ambulance.”

The helicopter cruises at about 150 miles per hour, Loyd said, and can go even faster with a tailwind.

“If we get up a little bit higher here, especially if we are heading east, we are going to get some of those winds. Even if we are cruising at 150 mph, if we have a 40 mph tailwind, now we are going 190 miles an hour.”

To make the trip even quicker, the crews are on standby 24-hours a day.

“When we get the call we just hit the starters and off we go,” Loyd said.

Helping folks on their worst day

Life Flight Network crews often respond to patients likely experiencing one of the worst days of their lives, Baldwin said. In this high-stress environment where mistakes can cost lives, crewmembers are expected to rise to the difficulty of the cases.

“You’ve got a job to do,” Baldwin said. “Some of it is very algorithmic and some of it is not so much, and you’ve got to make the best decisions in the moment. Once you do this job long enough you know these things exist out there and you just happen to be on that day with a bad call. It is part of it.”

The key is to focus on the patient Dalstra said.

“You don’t even have time to think about anything else but that.”

Moorison, a self-admitted adrenaline junkie, said discipline plays a major role.

“We just do our job and it is just driven in us because of the training we’ve had. Until that call is over, we are meeting the requirements the best we can in that situation.”

Moorison said it is marvelous to watch the crew in action.

“There is an orchestration to it,” she said.

“I would say it is more art than science a lot of times,” Baldwin added.

The best crews bring a vast amount of experience from diverse backgrounds, Moorison said.

“The combination of nurse and medic are really good because you are pretty well rounded in seeing the experience we both bring to the table.”

Despite the technology and medical science delivered in an air ambulance, both Baldwin and Moorison agreed just being with someone when they are suffering can make a huge difference for their well-being. Sometimes that means just holding their hand, Moorison said.

“It can be really emotional and you talk them through it. At least someone is there with them. If that were your loved one, who would you want them to be with? What kind of compassion would you want? We wear many hats in those situations.”

While on the job, the crew must remain mentally disciplined and then after hours, crew members said they must leave behind the traumatic experiences they witness.

“I was just on vacation driving through Montana and there was a horrible car accident on the other side,” Baldwin said. “They were tending to the patients and my wife was watching. She said, ‘Oh, look.’ I can’t see that because I am in vacation mode.”

“When I am in work mode” he said. “Throw it at me. I am good. I have a job to do.”