Winter Driving Tips, Surviving Jet Lag, the Smallest Heart Patient and More

The latest AirMed Travel + Health News is full of great information for all of your travel and health needs this holiday season.  Jet lag? No problem. We've got ways to combat it.  Read all about one of our smallest and most miraculous patients and so much more. 

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Inside the World of an International Flight Dispatcher

Dispatches from the Air Medical Field

The dispatchers at AirMed have their fingerprints all over flight operations for the company. Lead Dispatcher Jason Garcia took some time to tell us about the department and their important part of the air medical process.

by Jason Garcia
Lead Dispatcher at AirMed International

I actually had never heard of flight dispatching until a few months before I was enrolled in a flight dispatch class working on my certification. Fresh out of the Army and living off the generosity of relatives, I somehow completed the course with no problems and found myself looking for my first job as a flight dispatcher in the wake of 9/11. I had received my dispatch license only one week prior to September 11, 2001. After stints in Wichita and Cleveland, I came to AirMed in 2004 and have been here ever since.

Dispatchers deal with weather, air traffic, visibility issues,

customs issues, flight planning, pilot staffing, and

have a host of other unsung talents that help AirMed's

air medical flights operate smoothly.

AirMed dispatch combines every possible aspect of planning and logistics for our long-distance and domestic medical transports. Besides the flight planning and weather checking, we spend much of our time dealing with foreign handlers and customs agents all over the USA and abroad.

In today’s modern aviation environment there exists a huge list of little things you need to keep track of in order for trips to run smoothly. I have described my team of dispatchers as the busy legs that keep the duck looking so serene and relaxed on the pond…only this pond is full of alligators, red tape and rapidly changing requirements from other countries. Needless to say, I rely heavily on local handling agents to keep everything running properly and to make sure that our patients are brought safely home and that we exceed all their expectations.

Here at AirMed we only hire certified Part 121 flight dispatchers. That means they have passed the FAA Flight Dispatcher’s course and have been issued an FAA dispatcher license. The course includes classes on flight planning, aircraft performance and lots of instruction on reading weather forecast and condition reports. That sounds simple enough, but no one breezes through Dispatch School, and it is not uncommon for people to know the exact score they received on the final exam literally decades after taking the test. (I got a 92.)

Being a successful flight dispatcher requires a few other talents. All good dispatchers are organized and use their experience to plan ahead a few steps. I can always tell when a new dispatcher is progressing well in their training by the level of questions they ask. Not the number of questions, but rather the complexity of the question, such as how a single aspect of a trip can affect the success of the trip as a whole.

In the end though, every trip is different. To be successful, I am constantly rolling with the punches and playing them as I see fit. Sometimes I believe that I can expect a day where there could be no surprises and have it complicated with a typhoon or Israeli sorties in Lebanon or both. In those cases, a sense of humor may be a dispatcher’s most valuable commodity.

Over the years I have learned that no matter how deep the hole I find myself standing in, I always somehow find a way to make things all work out. Focusing on the trip and reminding myself and the dispatchers that someone is relying on our team to get them home after they hurt themselves while far from home is paramount. “Who better than me to get this person home to their family.” I actually say that to myself sometimes, and it works.

When the patient is delivered and the crew is on their way back to our home base, I enjoy a victory meal. The McDonalds by my house is open all night...they know me.

Being a Flight Nurse Saved My Life

"Love and compassion know no language, no one country."

Thibault, seen here on a desert tour in Abu Dhabi.

Jenni Thibault was a registered nurse in a small town. When she became a flight nurse for AirMed International, her world changed forever. She shares her well-traveled story with us.

Coming from a small, Southern town of less than 13,000 people was a blessing and a curse. I woke up everyday surrounded by the most amazing family and friends, worked in a hospital beside people I had trusted my entire life, some of them were the nurses and doctors who cared for my mother following my birth. Life was easy. Hardly exciting, but it was picturesque and representative of every small town and the slow paced life it has to offer.

Now the curse: 13,000 people. I repeat, 13,000 people. There are apartment complexes in Hong Kong with ten times that many people in a city block or two. How do I know this? Because my ever-moving, ever-changing family lives there. The adventurous side of the family, anyway.

It only took one time visiting to fall in love with Asia. The many cultures represented by the melting pot of nationalities and cultures in Hong Kong blew me away. I would go home to 13,000 people and want more, and then one day opportunity knocked. So, I packed my bags, went through training, and moved to Hong Kong to become a flight nurse with AirMed. I knew that if I didn't go, I’d regret it.

Wait. I'm the team?

Thibault's extraordinary photo of Big Ben

During my flight nurse training, I was reminded of things I hadn't reviewed since nursing school and scared mindless at the possibility of someone crashing on me at 40,000 feet and with no “code team.” 

Wait. I’m the team? Me and just one other person? I quickly learned to love the thrill and the opportunity to restore a person’s faith over an ocean, on their way home, and often following a tragic event.

After coming out of the initial, almost immobilizing, fear of being “alone” in the sky with a critical patient, I started to see the world. In one year, I filled an entire passport. A few months later, my extra pages were a quarter of the way filled.

I've ridden camels in Abu Dhabi, seen Big Ben at a very late evening sunset, stood at the base of a 112 foot tall bronze Buddha in Hong Kong, gotten a sunburn in the Philippines, and stood in front of Vasco de Gama’s tomb in historic Belem, Portugal. That is just off the top of my head. The countries and cities visited are too many to list.

Left: Lantau Peak in Hong Kong;  Right: Fenway Park in Boston

So, as if being a nurse wasn’t enough of a rewarding career, I get to see the world at the same time. In any setting I find myself in, I get to be the person that patients trust. I am able to be a part of their lives when they are most vulnerable, and they want me there. Most people cannot even say that about loved ones or family members, and I get to say it about complete strangers every single time I go to work. 

It quickly becomes evident that there are no strangers on medical flights, not for long anyway.

As an international flight nurse, I see the world through the love of a Muslim for his child, the patience of a Buddhist when travel logistics aren’t perfect, and the empathy of Christian giving up her seat for a sicker person. People say it is such a big world, that people are so different. Maybe we aren’t all that different. 

Thibault (left) and colleague
in Lisbon, Portugal.

I’ve come so far from my 13,000 person town, but I know that when things go wrong, love and compassion know no language, no religion and no one country.

---------------

Jenni Thibault, RN
AirMed International Flight Nurse

Find out more about AirMed memberships which get you home if you are ill or injured while traveling anywhere in the world at airmed.com. 

Security Scenarios, Sunscreen, Summer News from AirMed!

Important health, travel, air medical safety and other information from the leading air ambulance team.

AirMed Summer News is in!  Read all about it! Topics include:  

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States with more than 3.5 million skin cancers in over 2 million people diagnosed annually. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime.

Security Assessments: How AirMed helps members caught in an unsafe situation, where civil unrest is occurring in or near the city they have traveled.

Hurricane Evacuation:  What you and your family need to know.

Staff interviews, medical team training and more.

For more information on how to save your life and become an AirMed member, visit airmed.com.

Organ Donation is the Gift of Many Lives

A loving mother and AirMed medical team member shares her heartfelt story about her son Austin and his gift of life to a woman he never knew, but who has brought renewed joy to so many.

Lori's son Austin.

One of the things in life I am the most passionate about is organ donation. The reason—the main reason—for my passion is that I have personally experienced the joys of knowing someone who has been the recipient of a donated organ. I have seen the quality of life they now enjoy and know how it not only saved but has enriched their life.

Eight years ago, I lost my 14-year-old son, Austin, to a bicycle accident. I discussed the act of organ donation with his father when he died and was able to persuade him to let me pursue my wishes in this matter. There were many papers to sign and various procedures to discuss in this process. Once my son was declared brain dead by the doctors, I signed the organ donation papers to allow the procurement to begin. 

I asked a friend of mine at the Alabama Organ Center (AOC) to do the procedure himself. He assured me that he would perform the procedure and also would wait with my son’s body until the funeral home came to retrieve him. As you might imagine, these were some of the most painful days of my life, and I was pretty sure that the pain I was feeling would never subside.

Approximately a year after I lost my son, I decided to write the recipient of Austin's heart, lungs and a kidney. AOC has a program which allows donors and recipients to communicate through their offices, allowing each party to make the decision whether to establish a relationship, friendship or have simple contact. Fortunately for me, I received a letter from the recipient of all four of the above mentioned organs that once belonged to my son.

The recipient was a 39-year-old woman, a teacher who was forced to retire at a young age due to her lifelong health issues. She was born with a heart condition that did not allow oxygen to flow through her body appropriately. Due to this heart condition, her lungs were damaged throughout the years, and eventually her kidneys as well. She was not able to walk to the mail box at the end of her driveway without having to take a break and sometimes not able to continue with another break. After she received Austin’s organs, she went through a six-month healing process before being discharged from the hospital.

Lori (left) and her friend Lyn

Meeting this woman was probably one of the most emotional meetings of my life. Her name is Lyn, and my friendship with her has become something that not only encourages me, but that gives me great joy. Our friendship has helped me heal in ways that I don’t think most people who lose a loved one could ever fathom.

Lyn has to have regular and often invasive checkups every six months to make sure that everything is functioning properly. Since the initial surgery, she has had to have another kidney transplant. Austin’s kidney was not functioning well after almost 6 years. I was very upset when she told me that she was going to require another kidney or be on continuous dialysis...that is, until I found out that a transplanted kidney typically only lasts around three years after being subjected to the kinds of anti-rejection medications she is required to take. (My baby comes from tough genes!)

Lyn has since had a successful kidney transplant and is doing well. She is a remarkable lady, extremely grateful, and continues to take advantage of her second chance at life. Recipients deal with a constant range of emotions and feelings, as well as the donors who have lost a loved one. She deals with guilt on a level that most of us can’t imagine.

Not only do I whole-heartedly support organ donation, but I would also encourage anyone who donates to consider meeting the people who have been the recipient and vice-versa. A healing takes place between the two parties that is amazing. I seriously have never had the first regret about any part of the process.

You can’t imagine the feeling and peace it gives me to be able to hug my new friend and know that the heart of my baby boy is beating strong inside of her, giving her life and letting her make a difference!!  --Lori Patterson, RRT

Lori Patterson has been a flight respiratory therapist for AirMed since 2010. She recently married her longtime love, Rusty, in the presence of her friends, family and Austin's two sisters.