The Mercy One Crew came to Sheridan Thursday evening to conduct a training for local EMS crews on how to work with each other during an emergency and to facilitate communication. The pilot is Marty Iske, an Army veteran of 14 years; of those 14 years, 10 of them were spent flying a Black Hawk. He said that when he left the Army, his present job opened up and it worked out perfectly for him since he is from Clarinda. Other members of the crew were Wes Skarda, Flight Nurse and A. Qualseth, Paramedic.
Skarda said that the main two things they wanted to know when going into a situation were the weight of the person and where they were headed. Iske said that he wanted to know where any obstacles were in the landing area such as trees, buildings, and power lines. "Just get us to a safe landing zone," said Skarden. Once they get the call, it takes them 5-10 minutes in optimal conditions to get off the ground safely and another 15 minutes to get from Clarinda to Sheridan. It could be 10 minutes more in the event of bad weather.
Iske had never been to Sheridan before a few weeks ago; however, his Army training helped him as he knew where Hopkins was and he knew to follow 246. One paradox is that it is easier to find a scene during the night; he said that during a clear night, he can see the scene once they get airborne at 2,000 feet. It is more of a challenge during daytime.
Contrary to popular belief, the strangers hanging around with Fire Chief Butch Thomas were not SWAT team members trying to protect everyone during the drama of the prisoner escape. Instead, it was the Mercy One crew members picking out a landing site for Thursday night's meeting. Mercy One crew members are not First Responders; it is the job of the local EMS crews to get the victims stabilized and onto cots so that they can be transported. From Sheridan, Mercy One typically goes to St. Joseph since it is closer; however, they can go to Des Monies as well.
One of the most important things in life flight rescue situations is crowd control. Either one of the crew members or a Fire Department member stands near the helicopter to make sure that people stay away from the back of the helicopter. The rudder can hit someone and cause death or serious physical injury if someone gets too close while the craft is running. "Don't worry about equipment falling off; your only job is to keep people away from the back of the helicopter," said Skarda. He said that on occasion, he has had to tackle someone who had gotten too close to the craft. They don't mind people watching; however, they ask that people stay away from the craft. If a piece of EMS-owned equipment winds up at the hospital in St. Joseph or Des Moines, one of the jobs of the crew members during rainy days is to sort through it and mail it back to people on days in which there is nothing else to do.
Qualseth said that they were partners with the local crews. He said that there was no need for people to scatter too far, although people should stay at least 100 feet away from the craft for their own safety. The job of crews is to keep working even as the craft arrives. "We'll work around any situation we encounter," he said. When they arrive, the Mercy One crew will figure out what happened and conduct a head to toe assessment of the victims. They will ask for people with different skills to help. Sometimes, all they need is for someone to do light tasks for them like open packages so that they can concentrate on their work. The job of the EMS and the Mercy One crew is to stabilize the victim so that they can be transported to the hospital.
Skarda said that it was better to pull the trigger too quickly on calling the Mercy One crew instead of waiting until it was too late. He said that in that event, the only thing they lost was the fuel on the craft. It is routine for them to get a call and then halfway there, find out that the situation was not as serious as initially believed.
Crew members showed EMS personnel how to help load a patient on the craft. The craft is running at that point as the pilot wants to take off as fast as possible in order to get the patient to the hospital; therefore, it is not possible to communicate verbally due to the noise of the craft. In that event, it is essential for the crew members to communicate with taps and hand signals and for local EMS crews to understand those signals.
One of the questions the crew got was on transporting people who weighed a lot. They actually turn down more patients for being too big than being overweight. The crew is licensed to fly with so much weight; if they have to, they can fly around until they've used up enough fuel so that they can fit the patient into the craft. The only time they have had to turn someone away for weight was on an occasion when a victim weighed around 400 pounds. They have flown people close to 300 pounds. On the other hand, if they fly someone who is too big, their feet will be on the pilot's controls, which creates a hazard to the entire crew. "We don't blindly turn anyone away; we come to the scene and we try to make it work," said Iske.
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