In the treatment of traumatic injuries, the first hour often means the difference between life and death. As it happens, Graeme falls within shouting distance of a flying ICU. Aeromed Team Two is on duty at Sebring Reginal Airport when the call comes in. An ambulance is on its way. Highland County paramedics leave the track and round the corner to the airfield, where the crew waits for transfer. Aeromed Two is one of five helicopter teams run by Tampa General; the region covers twenty-three counties.
Matt Burnett remembers the call because patients aren’t often delivered to the hangar. “We usually fly to them,” he says. “We’re used to landing on the highway, or in somebody’s yard.” In his report, he describes finding the patient in the ambulance, head and torso elevated for airway protection, full spinal immobilization.
Impression: Altered level of consciousness. Traumatic injury. Respiratory distress. Airway obstruction. Syncope/fainting.
Later, he added: Major trauma. Neurologic distress.
The patient’s shirt has been cut off and left at the scene; the team wraps him in a medical cocoon for warmth. Normally, the chopper is off the ground in five minutes, but as the transport sled is loaded, the patient begins vomiting again, and his heart rate drops.
Due to deteriorating clinical presentation, length of flight and airway not deemed to be compromised, patient was placed back into ambulance to secure airway.
Ryan Kensinger performs intubation with help from a ground paramedic. Drugs for pain and sedation are administered. An Aeromed ventilator will keep the patient breathing during flight. Vital signs are stable; no signs of internal pain.
Only one problem: the passenger doesn’t fit in the cockpit. The sled rides sideways next to the pilot, feet in front, face to the rear, within reach of the team in the back seat. Graeme’s head is in Matt’s lap. His size-fourteen shoes block the air vent. It takes some doing—a shoehorn, the mechanic later laughs—but they finally wedge him into place, and the pilot prepares for take-off.
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