Helicopter nurses love, hate their job
PENN TWP — LifeFlight nurses who staff the station at the Butler County Airport for Allegheny General Hospital have a love-hate relationship with their job, depending on the day.
"It's a great job," they'll say, like Carl Ostrowski did on a slow day like Wednesday morning, just a few hours into his 24-hour shift.
"I enjoy what I do," said Kellie Chapman, his partner for the day.
But things can change at any moment.
"This job can be trying enough, especially when you have children injured or fatals," Ostrowski said.
"It's gratifying to know that some of the really tough ones pull through," Chapman said. "There are a lot of tragedies."
The number of missions handled by the Butler station varies.
"It can go from nothing to six or seven" in one day, Ostrowski said.
"Summertime is the busy season for us," Chapman said. "I've been horribly busy."
Chapman, of Carnegie, Allegheny County, and Ostrowski, of New Sewickley Township, Beaver County, are two of about 40 nurses who work for Allegheny General Hospital's five LifeFlight medical helicopter stations, including the one at the Butler Airport. Crews rotate between stations.
The others are at AGH, Indiana Regional Medical Center in Indiana County and Greensburg-Jeannette Regional Airport and Rostraver Airport, both in Westmoreland Township.
Each station is staffed around the clock by two nurses, plus a pilot and mechanic from the West Chester-based Keystone Helicopter, which is contracted to fly and maintain the aircraft.
The nurses work two 24-hour shifts a week. Chapman and Ostrowski were working from 7 a.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. Thursday this week.
The Butler station includes bedrooms for each of the nurses and a pilot, plus a common area equipped with a kitchen, television, computer and other items.
"This is home sweet home 'till 7 tomorrow morning," Chapman said.
"It's home away from home," said Ostrowski.
The hospital's fleet of aircraft includes the Sikorski S-76 and MD900 Explorer based at the Butler airport.
Wednesday morning, pilot Bryan Bly of Chippewa and mechanic John Baxley of Butler were washing the Explorer. The Sikorski was away for servicing.
"These are pretty state-of- the-art," said Bly, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves who returned in December from two years of active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Showing the inside of the Explorer, he said it has "the newer computerized cockpit. It allows us to go single-pilot IFR (instrument flight rules). We can fly through the clouds."The choppers can fly through virtually any weather if a landing spot is an airport or hospital with a heliport and equipped for instrument landing. Landing at the scene of an incident could be problematic in inclement weather."Normally," he said, "if the weather's good here, you take off and try the mission. If it's bad on the way, you abort the mission and come back before you lose visibility."The helicopters can be flown visually in the daytime with a 500-foot cloud ceiling and one- mile visibility, Bly said, or at night with a 1,000-foot ceiling and three-mile visibility.Pilots work 12-hour shifts, Bly said."If I've taken care of the nurses, I've done my job," he said.Chapman has been a nurse about 17 years, 9½ for AGH's LifeFlight crew. Ostrowski has been a nurse 16 years, 11 with LifeFlight.Ostrowski said six or seven years of critical-care experience is a prerequisite to be considered for a position as a LifeFlight nurse.Both said they like their LifeFlight work better than traditional hospital nursing."They're both challenging," Ostrowski said."It's always something different," Chapman said. "We're given a lot of autonomy flying."She said she also likes the schedule, "being able to work full time and raise a son.""You thrive on the challenge," she said."You face any possibilities," Ostrowski added.While on a mission, the nurses are in constant radio contact with doctors. Speed is always a prime concern."Minutes matter," Ostrowski said. "Time is of essence."Chapman said the crew is airborne within four to five minutes after receiving a call."You need to be at the top of your game," she said.The helicopters fly at about 145 mph, Bly said. It can fly from Indiana Hospital to AGH in about 24 minutes, he said, compared to about 1½ hours in an ambulance.Ostrowski said their main concerns are safety and patient care."We do things not typically done by nurses," Ostrowski said, which are governed by standardized protocol."We're very good at keeping a person alive," he said. "We're there for a lot of potentials. Sometimes we work really hard, sometimes we don't."That's what makes the job interesting. You never know.""There are days you don't do anything until 10 o'clock at night, then not be back to base until morning," Chapman said.Differences between emergency flight nursing and traditional nursing include working in a confined space and the way altitude affects different injuries, Ostrowski said.Each helicopter is equipped with all available tools needed for emergency care, including two units each of O-positive and O-negative blood.Missions vary between emergency situations and transferring patients when they need care that a different hospital is better at providing, which in some cases could include facilities outside the AGH network."You transfer some patients who really are OK," Ostrowski said. "Some look OK" but wind up suffering things like internal bleeding that isn't immediately apparent.The key, he said, is "get them there quickly and avoid complications."For patients being transferred, he said "We try to duplicate the care the patient was getting in the hospital."During slow periods, the nurses spend their time studying for their continuing education courses and staying rested and fit for missions that could happen at any moment."There was a shift I was in four states in one day," Chapman said. "You don't know where you're going to be.""We have to be responsible enough to be rested for potentials."The AGH LifeFlight service is in its 28th year. It operates in a 130-mile radius of Pittsburgh."It was the first air-medical program east of the Mississippi," said AGHspokesman Dan Laurent. "The first flight took place in 1978."The cost to be transported averages between $5,000 and $10,000, Laurent said, "dependent on factors such as distance."
