Lifeguard Helicopter Training
On Wednesday, 15-Jul-09, members of the Ely fire department were privy to a training session involving the St. Luke’s Lifeguard helicopter and its crew of three. The pilot, Wayne, spoke to us about the importance of selecting a good landing area for the helicopter and what types of areas to avoid. A few other topics he discussed included how much of a slope he could land on and how he would position the helicopter for ease of patient loading and for maximum safety of all. Hazards to flight safety were also an important topic–high wire lines, clothes lines, dust, gravel, and snow, as well as loose objects (including ball caps and fire helmets) that could be caught in the updraft and sucked into the rotor blades. Any one of these objects could cause damage to the helicopter and effectively “ground” the crew, if not actually cause it to crash. It was stressed that what ever you do, DO NOT try to chase down any loose object that has gone flying away–you run a high probability of injury if you get too close to spinning helicopter rotor blades.
The flight nurse and the flight paramedic, Vickie and Sue, then discussed with us how we can best assist them in patient care. They covered how to load a patient into the helicopter. They then showed us a very useful device they carry to use on CPR patients. This half-backboard gadget is able to take over the chest compressions of CPR and be more effective and efficient than a human. This machine doesn’t tire out and it is able to deliver consistent compressions, allowing the nurse and the paramedic to take care of other patient needs while CPR compressions are still being administered.
Unfortunately, the training had to end a little early since the helicopter crew was paged to be on standby for “real” work. Before they left, they handed out a few treasures to our group, which by that time had grown to include some of the local kids and their parents. The evening ended as we helped the crew load their equipment back into the helicopter and watched as they took off and headed to the aid of a patient.
