Thank you, folks
The last couple of days have picked up with a flight to Vredendal and two flights to George.
I've spent a lot of time in hospitals this year - sick niece, and operations for my sister and mom. I'm tired of hospitals.
But on one of the George flights I decided not to sit and wait in the terminal, but to rather go with the crew to the hospital.
The paramedics were only too happy to have me tag along.
It's the first time in many years that I have driven through George during the day. It was clean, welcoming, and I believe they have done away with taxi's and operate busses instead - really cool!
I have been to George hospital once, but never went inside. I was expecting something like HH Hospital in Somerset West... which is ironic as I have never been in HH either. But I have heard it's crowded, dirty, old and just not a pleasant place to be (as hospitals go).
Well, George hospital was empty. We went to a general ward where patients were just finishing off what looked and smelt like a decent pre-Christmas of lunch. Whilst it is an old hospital, it was neat and tidy and clean.
After checking on that patient (a last-minute teen experiencing seizures) we set off to ICU for the guy we originally came for.
The ICU was nice and cool - probably the only place with aircon. There were 6 beds, and two sisters/nurses on duty. Not quite like Busamed where it's a 1:2 (maybe even 1:1) ratio of staff to patients.
Our guy was in a car crash. Apart from a very swollen face and a cut on his foot, you never would have thought anything was wrong. That is, if a machine hadn't been breathing for him.
Intubated and ventilated, he had severe head trauma.
I got to watch the hand over from the doctor to the paramedics, and then the delicate process of setting up our equipment began. The PC-12 is a flying ICU, so we have portable ventilators. Once all the machinery was set up, they started transferring him over to our equipment. In aviation, communication is key, and it's no different in medicine. Switching from the hospital oxygen to our portable oxygen is a co-ordinated dance between paramedics, ensuring the patient is off oxygen for no more than a second.
I got to see how they make use of a scoop and head roll to immobilize the patient. How they get packaged to ensure comfort but also safety - this guy wasn't conscious but would randomly grab at leads and the very tube keeping him alive. A young chap, 18 or so, but tall, it took 4 of us to move him at times. And to think sometimes there are only two paramedics.
As the paramedics did their thing, they explained everything they did so that I could learn. At some companies overseas, pilots are trained to paramedic level, and paramedics to PPL level, so that they can work more effectively as a team when the poo hits the fan.
It took a little over two hours from landing at George, to leaving the hospital with the patients. It feels a lot longer when sitting in Wimpy.
For the drive back to the airfield I assisted by checking the oxygen bottle level as they had to time the transfer from ambulance to aircraft, and then aircraft to ambulance in Cape Town.
The aircraft has two big bottles of oxygen for patients, and a smaller portable bottle is used when loading and offloading patients (and in this case, in the ambulance as there was some sort of issue with the ambo's oxygen).
I could also see the patients' stats. The monitor and ventilator is attached to the stretcher that gets loaded into the aircraft. We reckon the weight of patient plus equipment was easily 120kg.
And we manually load patients into the back of the PC-12. There is no hydraulic lift. It's a workout, and there's always a risk of a sprain or pinched fingers.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service in Australia has a funky lift.
It was an uneventful flight back. Unfortunately, based on the stats of the critical patient, it is likely he has suffered severe brain damage. Makes one really appreciate every moment.
Topic: My African Dream (Read 228141 times)
