From The Tab at www.townonline.com
URL is www.townonline.com/needham/special/medflight/index.html
Feb. 25, 2000
MedFlight: Saving Lives by Air
Transport service makes life-or-death difference when trouble strikes
By Keith E. Jacobson
TAB STAFF
Within minutes after dispatch receives a call, pilot Gary "Grif" Griffith has Boston MedFlight's blue and white Dauphin 2 helicopter in the air and headed from its headquarters in Bedford to Newburyport.
In the rear, flight nurse Mary Amatangelo and flight paramedic Paul Guarino double-check the equipment and medications they will need following the 18-minute trip to Anna Jacques Hospital, where a 60-year-old man who has suffered a heart attack is waiting to be airlifted to Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital.
The MedFlight staff all work other jobs. Griffith, a former military and oil field chopper pilot, sometimes flies for a local TV station, but says that working for MedFlight is " the best job I ever had." Amatangelo teaches classes in emergency medical care, and Guarino is a fire department lieutenant in Reading.
Because of crew rotations, these three may not work together for months after this 12-hour shift for MedFlight, which transports critically ill or injured patients from accident scenes or from hospital to hospital. But their camaraderie and training make it appear as though they have worked together daily for years. All of MedFlight's medical staff, which includes the nurses and paramedics, rotate through shifts and on the different pieces of equipment, both ambulances and aircraft.
The work is exciting and interesting, but this multimillion dollar machine is designed for function and not comfort. The pilot and co-pilot seats are narrow, surrounded by radios and instruments. In the rear, the crew sits on jump seats, and every available inch of space is devoted to medical supplies and equipment, including a heart defibrillator, a ventilator and an incubator for newborns.
The roar of the jet engines overhead makes it necessary to communicate through headphones and a microphone incorporated into a helmet. And being relatively small, the helicopter is buffeted by air currents.
Founded in 1985 with one helicopter based at Logan Airport, Boston MedFlight is now headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford with a helicopter and a recently acquired Cheyenne XL twin turbo-prop airplane. The turbo-prop allows missions in weather that would ground the helicopter, notably to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and extends MedFlight's service area to include the Midwest and the entire eastern seaboard, including the Maritime Provinces of Canada, the Caribbean Islands and Bermuda.
A second helicopter is based in Plymouth, and MedFlight has an ambulance in Bedford for short-range critical care transport. If required, a jet is also available for longer transports.
Boston MedFlight will occasionally allow a member of the media or emergency personnel to ride along and observe their work to better understand how the service operates. Everything is done with an eye toward safety for the crew and their patients.
A visitor is first shown an instructional video, then is weighed so the pilot can assess the effect on the helicopter's performance. Then the passenger is fitted with a helmet with a microphone and headset to allow communications with pilot and crew. There is then a short walk to the helicopter, where a crew member conducts an orientation on everything from where to find a barf bag and plug in your headset to what to do during an emergency landing in water - stay strapped in until the copter sinks and inverts or the still-rotating blades could cause serious injury.
After delivering the patient to Mass. General on this November day, the crew stops for a quick bite in the hospital's cafeteria. Shortly after sitting down, all three simultaneously reach for their pagers: a signal that dinner is over and another patient is waiting. Taking the elevator to the rooftop heli-pad, Griffith and crew head west to Bowtich Field in Framingham.
MedFlight maintains extensive documentation on landing sites in all Massachusetts cities and towns in the service area. A quick check is all that is needed to find the local emergency services radio frequencies and designated landing areas. While some hospitals have heli-pads, more often the landing zone is a parking lot, field or a blocked-off section of highway.
When the helicopter arrives, local police mark the landing zone with their flashing lights and keep the crowd back. The sight of the helicopter descending and the chop-chop sound of its whirling blades is enough to stop cars and bring the curious out of their homes and offices." Framingham firefighters transport the MedFlight crew via ambulance a short distance to MetroWest Medical Center, Framingham Union campus, to pick up the patient, another heart attack victim. They return to Bowtich Field without a transport, however, explaining that an evaluation had been made. The patient is brain-dead and even the more intensive care provided by a major Boston hospital would be futile." Besides hospital-to-hospital transfers of critical patients, MedFlight's other major activity is responding to serious accidents or disasters where time is critical for the patient.
Boston MedFlight is a cooperative, nonprofit venture of six Boston hospitals which oversee the $5 million program and underwrite any operating deficits.
Patients are received by Boston Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, New England Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Children's Hospital Medical Center on a rotating basis. "
Hospital-to-hospital transport accounts for 75 percent of the more than 1,800 missions MedFlight undertakes (including ambulances, helicopters and airplanes); the other 25 percent is in direct response to accidents. Members of the medical crews are highly skilled, with a minimum of five years of professional experience and other professional certifications.
The rear of the helicopter is equipped to critical care standards. The objective is to maintain the patient at a comfortable and stable level during transport and delivery. " When the crew returns to base, there is much to do. Extensive records are kept on everything from the weather conditions during the flight to the patient's vital signs. And for every patient, there are calls to the hospital following up on their condition.
In his office, the pilot constantly monitors the weather on instruments similar to those used by meteorologists and keeps flight logs up to date. And everybody shares housekeeping chores: vacuuming, emptying the trash and picking up. While it is possible - although rare - that during a 12-hour shift, no call will come in or flights will be grounded by weather, the crew is always at the ready. "We want to provide expeditious and quality transport to those most critically ill or injured," said Dr. Suzanne Wedel, MedFlight's executive director. Does the program make a difference?
By way of answer, Dr. Alasdair Conn, chief of emergency services at Mass General, remembers a case involving a young woman critically injured in a motor vehicle accident on Cape Cod. She suffered a fractured pelvis, head and internal injuries and nearly died. "She would not be alive today if it had not been for MedFlight," he said.