Celebrate
Mother’s Day by Honoring the Medical Flight Teams Who Take Care of Our
Families:
One Family’s
Tale of How Air Medical Services Saved Them
By Blair Beggan,
Director of Communications, The Association of AirMedical Services
This Mother’s Day, it’s important for us to give thanks
to our mothers, but also to a committed group of men and women who provide care
to most ill and injured mothers, fathers and children across the country, each
and every day. Air medical flight teams, while not the most widely
recognized of emergency care providers, deserve an extra pat on the back this
Mother’s Day. Think of them as civilian soldiers on a mission for all of
us, including our Moms.
Case in point. One stepmom, Sandra Hutton, experienced a
flight team’s commitment firsthand when her stepson, Christopher Hutton, was in
dire need of an air medical transport. Transporting a patient by air is
beneficial because it not only provides a higher level of medical care to the
patient en-route, but also because it provides faster access to critical
medical care at a Level I or II Trauma facility. Sandra had been a flight nurse
by profession for many years, but for the first time she found herself on the
patient side of the situation. This Mother’s Day, Chris Hutton shares his
scary experience last year, and why he is so thankful for his stepmom Sandra’s
timely intervention using her membership to AirMed International, one of the leading air medical transport providers in
the world.
As a first-year medical student
at American University of the Caribbean located on Saint-Martin Island, Chris
assumed that he would be the one saving lives – not having his life saved. Yet
in 2014, Chris suddenly found himself having serious bladder issues. His wife
Julie took him to the hospital to be checked by a doctor and, unfortunately,
that’s where things took a turn for the worse. The island medical staff was
unable to place a catheter correctly and traumatized Chris’ urethra. Then they
inadvertently sliced off a segment of a plastic catheter inside Chris’ bladder.
His situation deteriorated hour-by-hour as concerns mounted about an onset of
peritonitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of
the abdomen's lining. “The island surgeon said he had sliced off
the tip of the catheter. It wasn’t until we were back in the U.S. that the
urologist told us it was a foot long piece of catheter,” Sandra said.
The Hutton’s knew they needed to
get Chris off that island and to a higher level of medical care back in the
United States. Sandra told him to make the call to AirMed. Once the call was
made, AirMed put its operation in motion. “We talked to AirMed the entire
time. We heard from them through email and through phone calls, they kept us
informed every step of the way,” Sandra recalls. “My husband flew to
Miami, and AirMed kept me informed of their aircraft and medical team status.”
“Lying in pain in a bed at night
there at the island’s hospital, it was the worst feeling, to feel a million
miles away from home,” says Chris. “Once the flight crew arrived,
everything changed. I knew from the instant they walked in that I was safe, and
on the road to recovery.”
AirMed transported Chris to the
University of Miami Hospital early the next morning. Because it was an
international flight, U.S. Customs came to the ramp to check all passports.
A ground ambulance met the flight, and brought Chris to the hospital.
“AirMed even arranged for a taxi to take Julie to the hospital when she was
finished with Customs. It was just a level of completeness—AirMed saw to it
that nobody was left stranded.” said Sandra.
Chris was taken into surgery in
Miami to remove the catheter and further assess the situation. A new catheter
was inserted and remained in place for 3 days. Once it was removed, Chris and
Julie were able to return to St. Martin to resume his medical school studies
with a new understanding of what it is like to be the patient. Since he’s been
back at school, Sandra has helped Chris write a protocol for the medical school
he attends to try and put some sort of medevac membership policy in place.
So this Mother’s Day, remember to give thanks to the men
and women who work hard to keep our families intact with excellent patient care
in the air! Please keep them in your prayers. You can read more of
Chris’s story at http://aams.org/chris-peritonitis-risk-necessitates-repatriation-u-s/.
What a sweet story! Thank you!
ReplyDelete- Beth
Always good to hear about good works that help families, especially on Mother's Day.Many of our emergency services and first responders arent thanked enough.
ReplyDelete