Last week I got to join the Manteno Fire Department for a helicopter training session. The fire department can call these helicopters in emergency medical situations, so patients can be life-flighted to a nearby hospital.
Well, in this training session, I got to be the patient!
The helicopter flew in from Joliet (about a 45 minute drive or a 10 minute flight) and landed right outside the fire department.
I hopped on the stretcher and the flight nurse and paramedic wrapped me up and buckled me in.
You can sort of see my forehead!
And then I got wheeled away to the helicopter.
They spent about 15 minutes during the lecture before the drill to emphasize the importance of not going near the back rudder thing. Well, that's exactly where they took me! The rolled me into the helicopter from the back end while it was still running or "hot," as they call it, so it was extremely loud and windy.
Unfortunately, they didn't fly me around which would've made for a lot better story, but it was still fun!
Let's just pray I only ever play the pretend patient!
That's cool! How did you get involved with it? Through your job?
ReplyDelete