By Kent Johnson, President
I can’t recall a more brutal week since I began flying EMS more than ten years ago. Six straight nights with mul‐ tiple patient transports, complete with marginal weather, and unanticipated delays. Long flights ‐ short flights ‐ ornery nurses and ornery me. My last of seven nights will be over in 13 hours, and then it’s off to the lake for a solid week of sleep‐fishing (I tie a bell to the tip of the rod). Sleep. Oh to have some sleep. I leave right after my shift is over. I really need to get some sleep tonight. Drinking that coffee this
morning before going home was prob‐ ably not so smart. As tired as I was, I just couldn’t sleep today; at least not much. The kids, the wife, the dog, the doorbell... This whole week has been that way, and I think I’m really feeling it now. Wow, did I just run a red light? Surely we’re not going to fly again tonight – Sundays are usually so quiet. Please, tell me we’re not going to fly tonight. I’ll preflight, brief my crew and then head straight to bed. . . . “Hi Julie, Hi Gordon. . . A flight? Already?” This would be an easy one to turn down. Weather everywhere. Nobody would question me. I am SO tired. But, we’ll be back in an hour, maybe two, and then I’ll sleep. . .
I doubt there are many of us who have flown EMS for long who can’t recall being in somewhat similar cir‐ cumstances at some time or another. If you’re reading this article now, it is because you have survived your night shifts relatively unscathed, at least thus
TOUGH STUFF
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far. Or maybe you have come close to experiencing an incident or even an accident and you look back and “thank your lucky stars” that things worked out as well as they did. Missed items on a walk‐around (or forgetting to do a walk‐around), too tired to run a check‐ list (that’s when you REALLY need to run a checklist), busted altitudes, air‐ space or runway incursions, failure to see wires or other obstacles, irritability, poor judgment – and the list goes on.
Price Of Fatigue
Industry as a whole pays a high price for fatigued workers. As reported in a recent study conducted by Dr. Mark Rosekind and colleagues, productivity losses due to fatigue costs U.S. busi‐ nesses anywhere from $1,293 to $3,156 per employee annually . Depending upon how well those employees actu‐ ally do sleep, nearly one in six fall into the higher loss/cost category. While
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