Newton firefighters and EMTs are working hard to keep their community safe, and Tuesday they added AirCare, an emergency medical helicopter service that can be used to get patients to the hospital faster.
At the Newton Fire Department Tuesday, firefighters, EMTs and other first responders gathered to hear from Ben Wyatt, an EMT with Aircare based in Newton. Wyatt walked the first responders through the proper steps of calling for a helicopter and how to give the pilot a safe place to land.
“There’s a lot of gears that have to turn to launch a helicopter,” Wyatt said. “You can’t just call and say, ‘We need a helicopter,’ and we’ll send one.”
When a call is received, the first thing first responders will need to report is the condition of the patient. A full diagnosis isn’t necessary, but the helicopter team will need to know at least age and weight.
“It doesn’t need to be a long, drawn out scene,” Wyatt said, adding the more information that can be shared is helpful.
If a first responder suspects a patient has internal head bleeding, Wyatt said that is something the helicopter team needs to know. The chopper is equipped with equipment for most scenarios, but intracranial bleeding requires special medications that will need to be added before takeoff.
“We do have some other medications that will work instead,” he said, but admitted the substitute medications are not as effective.
Once the helicopter is in the air, Wyatt said it’s up to the local first responders to set up a landing zone. A helicopter needs a 100-feett by 100-feet square free of power lines and trees to land in, he said.
“That sounds like a big space, but it really isn’t,” he said.
First responders should choose a “ground commander” to coordinate with the helicopter pilot, Wyatt said. Usually, he said, the commander is the ranking officer on scene.
The job of the ground commander is to ensure the landing zone is set up and properly lighted, provide the EMTs on board with updates on the patient’s condition and relay important information about the scene to the pilot.
“Don’t tell us about the wind,” Wyatt said. “These are very sophisticated machines. We know which way the wind is blowing. If a gnat farts, the helicopter can tell us which way it’s blowing.”
Instead, he said, the ground commander should relay information such as power lines, fences or other potential hazards the pilot needs to know about to safely land.
“Give the best description of your LZ you can give us,” he said.
A good landing zone, Wyatt said, is a 100-feet by 100-feet space of firm ground with no obstacles and has no more than a 5-degree slope.
“It can be anything,” he said. “If you’re in the woods and can find a 100-foot by 100-foot space in a logging area, we can land a helicopter in it.”
Aircare operates four full-time HEMS crews in Jackson, Meridian, Columbus and Greenwood, Wyatt said. The helicopters respond statewide and even to Alabama, though rarely due to bureaucratic red tape, he said.
The goal, he said, isn’t to show up local rescue crews or bring more patients to the state’s major hospitals. The reason a helicopter is used is speed.
“Rural EMS and rural fire are getting more and more rural,” he said. “Newton isn’t getting any closer to Mobile. It’s not getting any closer to Jackson.”
When someone is injured in a wreck, fire or has a medical emergency, it’s a race against the clock to get them the care they need. A helicopter, Wyatt said, is faster than an ambulance.
“I’m a paramedic,” he said. “A paramedic in a helicopter does the same thing as a paramedic in an ambulance. We just have cool toys to play with.”
After the presentation, Newton first responders trooped outside to see Aircare 2, out of Meridian, which had been flown over to give the class a chance to acquaint themselves with the chopper.
Newton Fire Chief J.C. Collins said he was grateful to Aircare for taking the time to offer the class and show firefighters how to safely call in a med-evac.
“I appreciate the guys coming,” he said. “They took the time out of their schedule to come here from where they’re stationed to teach this class.”
Collins said he makes sure all of his firefighters know how to properly set up a landing zone but hearing it from Wyatt was very helpful.
“If you don’t know how to, or where you can, you’d probably miss out on a lot of opportunities,” he said. “It was very beneficial.
For a rural area like Newton, Collins said Aircare can mean the difference between life and death. In some cases, it can take over an hour to transport a patient to the hospital by ambulance, he said. Aircare can do it in 30 minutes, which gives the patient a better chance of surviving.
Aircare has previously been used in Newton County, though rarely. In his lecture, Wyatt referenced the Chunky bridge collapse in which three Aircare helicopters helped transport patients.
Collins said knowing that resource is available is a great comfort to him and his team.
“We don’t use Aircare a lot, but when we do, when we need them, they’re always there,” he said.
