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On the rotorwings of angels: Reporter takes flight with Life Link III

BRAINERD, Minn. - Earlier this month, the Life Link III emergency medical services helicopter crew showed off their facility that opened three weeks ago at the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport.Flight nurse and base leader Laura Adamek took us insi...

The Life Link III emergency medical services helicopter pilot guides the aircraft back to its new hangar at Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport after a demonstration flight. Steve Kohls / Forum News Service
The Life Link III emergency medical services helicopter pilot guides the aircraft back to its new hangar at Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport after a demonstration flight. Steve Kohls / Forum News Service

BRAINERD, Minn. - Earlier this month, the Life Link III emergency medical services helicopter crew showed off their facility that opened three weeks ago at the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport.

Flight nurse and base leader Laura Adamek took us inside operations at the base, and let us fly in the helicopter for a late afternoon jaunt around Brainerd city limits. First, though, she detailed the ways the Life Flight crew can help save a person's life while flying them to the hospital, and the challenges the crew faces in doing it.

"We're basically an ER in the sky," she said.

The tour began in the paramedics' new dormitory, which is essentially a modern one-floor rambler house. Each member of the crew gets their own room to stay in while they're on shift, and there's also a kitchen and living room. While they showed it off, the opening of "Jurassic Park III" was playing on the big-screen TV, the part where the ill-fated protagonists are paragliding near a dinosaur-infested island that's supposed to be under quarantine.

The Life Flight crew also has to be a little reckless, although their recklessness is a lot more selfless and considerate than Jurassic Park. Asked what the most difficult part of his job is, pilot James Young gave the example of deciding when to give the green light and when to scrub a mission when there's nasty weather. Canceling a flight may put a patient's life at additional risk, but flying in severe weather may threaten the safety of the crew. Being a medevac pilot in Minnesota brings the problem into sharper focus, since the weather here is notoriously mercurial and changes constantly, Young said.

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"Sometimes, honestly, with Minnesota, it's your best guess," he said. "There's a lot of times when the weather reports really aren't that accurate, so that really becomes a challenge here."

Moving on from the rambler, Adamek showed us the hangar, which also seemed shiny and new. Two machines stood next each other along one wall of the hangar: a refrigerator and what appeared to be a vending machine. The refrigerator contained two packs of 0 negative blood, and the "vending machine" was full of lifesaving drugs. The medics simply put their code in the machine, and they can keep track of medication as easily as though they were getting food. The Life Flight crew also has night vision goggles stashed away.

From the hangar, we moved out into the sunny May afternoon, and sitting on a trailer was the helicopter itself. N358LL is the eighth of eight AgustaWestland 119Kx helicopters to join the LifeLink III fleet in Minnesota. "Agusta" is pronounced with a long "oooo" sound because it's the Italian half of an Italian and British business merger. Each aircraft is powered by a single Pratt & Whitney engine capable of more than 1,000 horsepower and 152 knots (166 mph) top speed. The Life Flight crew typically cruise at about 1,000 feet above ground.

The trailer the helicopter was sitting on was towed by a John Deere tractor not much bigger than some riding lawn mowers. One of the flight crew wryly observed that everyone who visits the base seems to focus on the John Deere for some reason.

We took off directly from the trailer, the helicopter wiggling as it rose the first few feet, like a cat about to pounce on something. The long grass around the helipad rippled with the air moving around the rotors.

The helicopter's cabin was tight quarters, making it even more surprising to realize they're usually more heavily loaded than when we rode. Each flight crew consists of a pilot, flight medic and flight nurse, plus space for a patient on a gurney, and all of the EMS machines used to "stabilize" patients (keep them from going into shock). Examples include a Lucas Device, which automatically does chest compressions for CPR; an ultrasound for emergency cardiac exams; and an "epoc," or Electronic Point of Care, for emergency blood tests.

While in the air, we mostly observed "sterile cockpit rules," meaning conversation was limited to the task at hand. That keeps the crew and passenger focused on identifying potential safety hazards, like a flock of geese about to collide with the chopper.
Although the crew didn't have any geese hit in the two weeks N358LL had been flying out of Brainerd, six smaller birds had hit the chopper since the base opened.

"Hopefully they're just ... little tweety birds, but the bigger ones can get right through," Young said. "The windows are basically just an acrylic, so if you hit something that large, at that speed, it'll probably come through."

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The only thing we were struck by on our trip was the immense beauty of the woods surrounding Brainerd, and the Mississippi River stretched out below us. It isn't often that the Life Flight III crew gets to appreciate the scenery.

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