Making a Difference


North Memorial Health Air Care employs 80 nurses and paramedics to fly with its 30 pilots. Flight crews are 100-percent advanced-certification clinicians to bring lifesaving skills to patients at their time of need. Part of the crew training responsibility falls to the expertise of Clinical Manager Sell. “They all come knowing how to care for sick patients. They need to learn how to do it in a helicopter,” she says about their rigorous four months of training and qualifications schedule before they are operational on the flight line.


To help the clinicians save lives during that critical transportation phase back to the trauma center, the 109s have been outfitted with some unique equipment, including fluid warmers and heated


blankets to prevent the onset of shock and hypothermia. These active warming measures can make the difference between life and death. “In rural Minnesota, they are hours away from a level one trauma center by ground ambulance. We also carry whole blood and packed red blood cells which are lifesaving treatments to those trauma patients,” Sell says after showing us some of the lifesaving equipment that is within arm’s reach of the paramedic in the back of the 109.


To Clinical Director Shimon Cohen, the aircraft, pilots, and paramedics in the back are a dream combination. “As we have our trained clinicians, we are able to bring the ER or ICU to the patient and transport them to the large facility to get them the care that they need. With our aircraft and the speed, that makes the difference,” he says.


North Memorial Health Air Care has seven flight bases, most of them in rural Minnesota.


52 July/Aug 2021


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