EMS Flying Career/Jobs
07-23-2018, 05:57 AM
#21
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Posts: 867
Originally Posted by Fleet Warp
I think so actually. M A A
A neighbor got transported in the 25 awhile ago. The plane RONd for an early departure. Everybody was at the airport ready, but the battery was dead. The crew should have caught this before the the patient left the hospital. Instead, they had to go back and wait as the 200 flew a battery and mechanic from GA.
That’s the kind of place that wouldn’t have a problem hiring a pilot with another full-time job. I friend looked at that place a few years ago. He said the pay was the same as what he made flying 35s in the 80s.
07-23-2018, 11:01 AM
#22
Disinterested Third Party
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,023
I flew medevac, ambulance, administrative transport, and organ recovery with four different operations in everything from light piston twins to turboprops to turbojets, dirt runways to busy international airports. Good, bad, and some really ugly.
It's illegal to discriminate as an ambulance carrier, but I've seen a lot of it. I've seen quite a few operators who will ask for the patient insurance information, then go unavailable if they don't like it, or who will defer to another operator and pawn a risk off on someone else. I carried a lot of pawned-off patients at one operation, because we refused to operate dishonestly, and we got stiffed on payment about half the time. But we got called, because the hospitals and clinics knew we'd respond regardless of who needed the lift.
I hauled hearts, kidneys, livers, bone, blood and all kinds of pieces and parts, doctors and recovery teams, and patients. I had gunshot victims, burn victims, highly contagious communicable diseases, cancer patients, and once a victim with a fresh chainsaw to the face. I've done a lot of weather flying to remote, uncontrolled airports, most often at night, most often in mountainous terrain, often single pilot.
Realize that it's a 135 operation. Whatever good feeling you think you'll have, and the hero-implications of saving the day, the bottom line is that you're there to make safety of flight decisions applicable to any 135 flight operation, and you'll never make them based on the patient's interest. Only on what's safe. You'll let the medical crew worry about the patient, and frankly, I never followed up to see who lived or died, or how the patient fared, because my function was to fly them, and make safe decisions. You won't rush because the patient is urgent. You won't push weather or night, and you'll turn down critical organ recovery flights when the weather meant it was unsafe or illegal, just like I have. You won't put yourself, your aircraft, your crew, or the patient at risk because you want to save the day, or feel urged to do something you shouldn't because it's a medical emergency. It's not an emergency. It's your job.
You'll spend a lot of time sitting, waiting. A lot of time. You'll confront the fact that the pay isn't that great, that the job doesn't lend itself to longevity, and that ambulance operations tend to last a while and turn into something else. There are a lot of shady ones out there. Lifers and long timers doing that work are often there because they couldn't get on elsewhere. Or it's a stepping stone.
Some of the flights will stick with you. One night I picked up a young man who'd had a snowboarding mishap. His neck was broken. During the initial treatment for the broken neck, a tumor was discovered; the reason the neck was weakened, and the patient learned he was terminal. I flew him from the ski resort to a hospital on the other side of the range. It stuck with me; he was a young man being taken somewhere to die. My next patient was a young boy, terminal cancer. That one stuck with me. Haunted me. I never follow up, but I didn't have to. The next patient was a transport, several states away. Another cancer case, terminal, flying him home to die. We carried some family. In the end we didn't get paid, but those three bothered me.
None of them bothered me so much as the 8 year old boy I picked up one night. I was in a movie when the call came. He was deceased, they needed an extra pilot to move him. Native, he had to be interred before sunrise. It was a full moon, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw a body bag on the sled, only it was an adult bag half-full because of his tiny body. He'd drowned, playing in a pool. That one haunted me for years, and I can still see that bag clearly, though it was decades ago.
I was given an administrative patient to move, no nurse. He sat in the front right seat, and somewhere, in the middle of nowhere with just he and I at dusk, collapsed and had a heart attack in my cockpit. Another quiet lady sat in the right seat, administrative flight, no nurse, and only after I landed did I learn she was a suicide. On another flight, the patient collapsed while driving a big rig, and the rural hospital couldn't identify the cause. I transported him, and after the flight was approached and told he had a very contagious condition. I was given shots and antibiotics and medications that turned my skin orange, burned. On another run, a multi-casualty incident, the patient was crashing when the bus backed up to the airplane. I could see blood on the windows, and some squiring on the windows. The door flew open, the head medic was screaming for supplies, which I was handing out of the airplane because the volunteer ambulance was running out. Then they ran out of hands, and I was gloves on and in the ambulance working on the patient, too. That particular one didn't make it.
Toss aside whatever romantic ideas you have about ambulance work and look at it from a practical perspective. I don't regret the medical flying I've done. I'd do it again. It's not a career, and ambulance companies and corporations don't treat it like one or pay like one. In some cases, it's a racket. In other cases, the medical personnel rule the show, and you do NOT want flight decisions being made by non-pilot nurses and medics. Don't tell them how to do their job, but don't let them dictate yours, and don't work for companies in which the management on down are medical personnel. Regardless of their qualifications in back, you are always the final say on the operation of that flight, and don't work for a place that tries to pressure you otherwise.
Don't run. Walk.
Be willing to say "no." It's the most powerful tool you have.
Pick up a good hobby in your spare time. I suggest building an airplane. You'll have time. If not, read. A lot.
It can't be understated enough. You're not there to save the patient, but to drive the airplane, and you're alone. You will often be working on the wrong side of the clock. Don't rush. Speed kills. People put too much emphasis on the "e" in ems. You have medics. You provide the service. The patient provides the emergency, but don't make it yours.
It's illegal to discriminate as an ambulance carrier, but I've seen a lot of it. I've seen quite a few operators who will ask for the patient insurance information, then go unavailable if they don't like it, or who will defer to another operator and pawn a risk off on someone else. I carried a lot of pawned-off patients at one operation, because we refused to operate dishonestly, and we got stiffed on payment about half the time. But we got called, because the hospitals and clinics knew we'd respond regardless of who needed the lift.
I hauled hearts, kidneys, livers, bone, blood and all kinds of pieces and parts, doctors and recovery teams, and patients. I had gunshot victims, burn victims, highly contagious communicable diseases, cancer patients, and once a victim with a fresh chainsaw to the face. I've done a lot of weather flying to remote, uncontrolled airports, most often at night, most often in mountainous terrain, often single pilot.
Realize that it's a 135 operation. Whatever good feeling you think you'll have, and the hero-implications of saving the day, the bottom line is that you're there to make safety of flight decisions applicable to any 135 flight operation, and you'll never make them based on the patient's interest. Only on what's safe. You'll let the medical crew worry about the patient, and frankly, I never followed up to see who lived or died, or how the patient fared, because my function was to fly them, and make safe decisions. You won't rush because the patient is urgent. You won't push weather or night, and you'll turn down critical organ recovery flights when the weather meant it was unsafe or illegal, just like I have. You won't put yourself, your aircraft, your crew, or the patient at risk because you want to save the day, or feel urged to do something you shouldn't because it's a medical emergency. It's not an emergency. It's your job.
You'll spend a lot of time sitting, waiting. A lot of time. You'll confront the fact that the pay isn't that great, that the job doesn't lend itself to longevity, and that ambulance operations tend to last a while and turn into something else. There are a lot of shady ones out there. Lifers and long timers doing that work are often there because they couldn't get on elsewhere. Or it's a stepping stone.
Some of the flights will stick with you. One night I picked up a young man who'd had a snowboarding mishap. His neck was broken. During the initial treatment for the broken neck, a tumor was discovered; the reason the neck was weakened, and the patient learned he was terminal. I flew him from the ski resort to a hospital on the other side of the range. It stuck with me; he was a young man being taken somewhere to die. My next patient was a young boy, terminal cancer. That one stuck with me. Haunted me. I never follow up, but I didn't have to. The next patient was a transport, several states away. Another cancer case, terminal, flying him home to die. We carried some family. In the end we didn't get paid, but those three bothered me.
None of them bothered me so much as the 8 year old boy I picked up one night. I was in a movie when the call came. He was deceased, they needed an extra pilot to move him. Native, he had to be interred before sunrise. It was a full moon, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw a body bag on the sled, only it was an adult bag half-full because of his tiny body. He'd drowned, playing in a pool. That one haunted me for years, and I can still see that bag clearly, though it was decades ago.
I was given an administrative patient to move, no nurse. He sat in the front right seat, and somewhere, in the middle of nowhere with just he and I at dusk, collapsed and had a heart attack in my cockpit. Another quiet lady sat in the right seat, administrative flight, no nurse, and only after I landed did I learn she was a suicide. On another flight, the patient collapsed while driving a big rig, and the rural hospital couldn't identify the cause. I transported him, and after the flight was approached and told he had a very contagious condition. I was given shots and antibiotics and medications that turned my skin orange, burned. On another run, a multi-casualty incident, the patient was crashing when the bus backed up to the airplane. I could see blood on the windows, and some squiring on the windows. The door flew open, the head medic was screaming for supplies, which I was handing out of the airplane because the volunteer ambulance was running out. Then they ran out of hands, and I was gloves on and in the ambulance working on the patient, too. That particular one didn't make it.
Toss aside whatever romantic ideas you have about ambulance work and look at it from a practical perspective. I don't regret the medical flying I've done. I'd do it again. It's not a career, and ambulance companies and corporations don't treat it like one or pay like one. In some cases, it's a racket. In other cases, the medical personnel rule the show, and you do NOT want flight decisions being made by non-pilot nurses and medics. Don't tell them how to do their job, but don't let them dictate yours, and don't work for companies in which the management on down are medical personnel. Regardless of their qualifications in back, you are always the final say on the operation of that flight, and don't work for a place that tries to pressure you otherwise.
Don't run. Walk.
Be willing to say "no." It's the most powerful tool you have.
Pick up a good hobby in your spare time. I suggest building an airplane. You'll have time. If not, read. A lot.
It can't be understated enough. You're not there to save the patient, but to drive the airplane, and you're alone. You will often be working on the wrong side of the clock. Don't rush. Speed kills. People put too much emphasis on the "e" in ems. You have medics. You provide the service. The patient provides the emergency, but don't make it yours.
07-23-2018, 05:28 PM
#23
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2013
Posts: 684
QUOTE/ In other cases, the medical personnel rule the show, and you do NOT want flight decisions being made by non-pilot nurses and medics. Don't tell them how to do their job, but don't let them dictate yours.[/QUOTE]
Couldn't agree more with this statement. Turbulence is always the pilots fault LOL!
Couldn't agree more with this statement. Turbulence is always the pilots fault LOL!
07-25-2018, 05:41 PM
#24
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2016
Posts: 102
Originally Posted by xcop
I did that for about 10 years, before I was able to retire from the job I hated but, needed. I then was able to get the job I wanted. You do what you have to do. But, I’m sure he appreciates your judgmental advice.
I know two guys who were killed doing fixed wing Medevac and a few others in rotors. It's a job to be taken seriously. I'm not implying that the guys I knew were fatigued. But someone working a day job will be.
07-28-2018, 10:43 AM
#25
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2017
Posts: 120
Originally Posted by AbramF
The negative part for me is that almost all of the flying happens on the back side of the clock, between 10 pm and 8 am. Coupled with the fact that I have a day job, that gets really exhausting.
There are a couple pilots that own their own business and flies for us. But they can be absentee owners so no problem with flying.
I have known pilots that have flown air ambulance for 30 years. It is a career.
I know one pilot that started when air ambulance was done in a C-206 or C-210 carrying the patient and the Dr. He tells me stories of going into Mexico and having to bribe officials to take the patient out of the country.
07-30-2018, 12:26 AM
#26
Disinterested Third Party
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,023
Originally Posted by MadmanX2
He tells me stories of going into Mexico and having to bribe officials to take the patient out of the country.
I write mexico with lower case. It's not high on my to-visit list and doesn't merit a capital letter.
Some damn good food there, though.
08-07-2018, 04:11 PM
#27
New Hire
Joined APC: Apr 2015
Posts: 6
Originally Posted by MadmanX2
At my company a pilot can work another job, as long as that job is on the bottom of the priority list and does not interfere with rest. If the other job is affecting the flying job, then that person gets called in and has to make a choice on which job is more important. That decision will have to be made before walking out of the office.
There are a couple pilots that own their own business and flies for us. But they can be absentee owners so no problem with flying.
There are a couple pilots that own their own business and flies for us. But they can be absentee owners so no problem with flying.
For the record, I own my own company and have the luxury of adjusting my schedule do get proper rest on days that I am available. However, I am cognizant that most of the comments on here were made in good faith.
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