kid in a candy store

Last week John got to do something he's always wanted to do - fly in a helicopter! One of the members of our ward (George) is an ex-marine helicopter pilot and flies the Medivac helicopter for the Pittsburgh area. John has always toyed with the desire to be a flight nurse and has always had these thoughts that he would love it. Well, finally last Monday he got his opportunity to test it out. George had John come up and tag along for the day.



John got there at 6:45 a.m., all bright eyed and bushy-tailed ready to spend the day flying. Although, as exciting as it appears... all jobs are subject to reality. And the reality is that you have to wait for a call to come in. John's one and only call of the day came in around 3 p.m. Since the shifts are 24 hrs, everyone takes advantage of down time to sleep, watch TV, I got to come take some pictures, John got oriented, and then he studied for the rest of the time. The flight team consisted of 3 people: George and 2 flight nurses. As you can see below, there's not a lot of extra space available in the helicopter...







Here's John to share about his day...

As if being in the OR all day or sitting in class isn't exciting enough, earlier this week I had the chance to follow a Medevac crew around for the day. There was always something inside of me wondering if I could ever have handled this job. Most of my day was spent at the base waiting for a call. This was good because that meant no one needed to be transported to the hospital. But it was bad because I only got in one flight. I was told that most days are spent flying so this happened to be a slow day for them. I've been in commercial airplanes, private airplanes, hot air balloons, paragliders, power parachutes, and gliders but never a helecopter so this was a very exciting time. Our one call took us from Greensburg to Latrobe then on to Pittsburgh to drop off this patient. The weather was great (unusual for Pittsburgh), leaves were changing colors, and the ride was suprisingly smooth. George was able to take me on an arial tour of downtown Pittsburgh on our way to refuel. I'll admit it is a bit scary when the take-offs and landings are based around where you can crash-land in case the engines fail. However, when you're flying around in a 4.5 million dollar helecopter you can expect that it is well maintained. It was a great experience and I'm glad that I had the chance. However, I'll keep my feet firmly planted on the ground in the safety of the OR knowing that at any given moment I can call for additional help if I need it. My hat is off to those pilots, nurses, and paramedics who do this kind of work.

Here are some pictures I took while we were flying around. What a great day!