Air Evac

A few weeks ago, I went on an Air Evac to the states with a patient from downrange. He had tried to commit suicide so he needed a 1:1 attendent. He also had entry and exit wounds, dressing changes, and a chest tube so they decided a medial attendant would be a good idea. I was already going to the states on Monday, so why not leave Sunday instead? At first, we thought he was going to Walter Reed in DC. Which would have been AMAZING. I would have gotten into Seattle a day early!! Perfect... or so I thought. When the manifest came out, he was going to Fort Gordon, GA. Which meant an extra day of traveling and I would get into Seattle a day late. However, this experience doesn't happen very often so I knew I had to jump on the offer. I was lucky that I was already packed and ready to go beacuse I was so excited to get to the states. I had a rough night calling American Airlines to try to change my ticket because you can't change a country of origin on a ticket. I called 3 times, talked to 3 different people before someone would sympathize with me. I got my ticket cancelled and reissued with the price difference... which was hardly anything at all, but it worked. I'd already called LRMC freaking out because it looked like i was going to have to spend another 1000 dollars to get myself from objective to Seattle and American wasn't working with me. Then i got some advice from CDR Hughes and felt better and went to get as much sleep as I could.


8am on Sunday I arrived on the unit. We did one last dressing change because on the flight you can't take dressing down, you can only reinforce. Then got his stuff together and went down to the loading bay. We waited for awhile to get on the buses. The buses have been modified to take litters. Yes, we still use litters. All the middle is just transport, once we were on the plane I met the flight nurse in charge of my patient. We agreed that as medical attendent I was in charge of all his care and his medication administration and charting. I had a seat right behind him. The flight was 9.5 hours. I had been at a party with Gabe the night before so I didn't get a whole lot of sleep so when he slept, I slept. The flight crew fed my sweet tooth for snickers bars by having a whole box of them. I only had 2...

We landed at Andrews AFB and spent the night at the Aeromedical Staging Facility. Kind of like a hosptial, but not. They had everything we needed and I stayed there too in my own bed. It was a very nice unit. It looked more like a hotel than a hospital ward. There, I talked to the staff to figure out how I would get from my objective to Seattle. They said, "hey... the flight you're going on comes back here tomorrow, get a flight from DC" they called the terminal, the terminal said "sure, she can stay on the plane, no problem. 100% book the ticket" (there was 150 dollar ticket difference between Atlanta and DC... not to mention I was going to Augusta NOT Atlanta... $749 one-way from Augusta to seattle.. dream on ) So i book my ticket. Wonderful. I got a great night's sleep and th next morning we were on our way on a C-130 down the east coast.


We made 4 stops before we got to Augusta. I felt SO SICK. I can only imagine how my patient was feeling. Diesel fuel fumes are not my favorite. Well, here's where the trouble starts. There's no nurse to make a trade on the patient with just the ambulance with an EMT, so I have to go to the hosptial to hand off the patient. The flight crew and the PAX terminal at objective don't know I'm supposed to be on the plane going back, the departure terminal never changed the manifest to include my return. So, the charge nurse doesn't want to hear anything about it, she's pissed as anything that she didn't know about this, the terminal tells me they didn't hear of any changes from origin and they can't change it now, and the flight crew wants to wait for me but there's no communication between me and the crew once i leave the airport. So, off I go with my bags to the hosptial and no known way of getting back to DC.


I get to the hospital at 5:30pm and my flight from DC is 5:45am the following morning. We called the airport, the 111 flight did indeed take off again (even though they were 90 minutes ahead of schedule). The next military flight doesn't leave until Wednesday (it's Monday) The hospital staff doesn't know what to do with me beacuse they don't know if PAD or if liasons are supposed to take care of me. There are no available rooms at the lodging and everyone is calling anyone they can think of to figure it out. I'm still trying to get back to DC tonight! The best they had come up with was for me to stay with a SQD leader in the barracks and drive me the next morning with a group already going to DC. Not sounding good...I didn't have access to a computer so I couldn't get to expedia or anything. I had to decide if money was time or if time was money and how worth it was getting to Seattle at 10am tomorrow. We finally got a hold of a PLT SGT who could get on a computer. By now, it's 6pm. There's a USairways flight to NC from Augusta at 7:30pm. I said, "Ok, take me to the airport (the same one I just came from) I will talk to them when I get there."


So, I'm at the airport, I'm still in uniform, and I tell my story to the people at the ticket counter and she laughed sympathetically. Granted, I'm Georgia, they LIKE the military unlike some other states. So she changed my ticket free of charge from DC to Augusta (and didn't even charge the difference in the ticket). At this point, Augusta is the most beautiful airport I'd ever seen, they had been beyond helpful and understanding. I spent the night in the North Carolina airport and got on my plane connection from NC to SEA the next morning. After 3 days of travel, I finally got to Seattle. In the end, it probaby worked out for the better... I didn't have to ride the C-130 back to DC... that is a miserable aircraft.