CMSA Communities

It was the day before Super Bowl Sunday when MedFlight911 Air Ambulance received the call. A pediatric intensivist at the children’s hospital in Boston was on the line, and he wanted to know if we could arrange an air medical transport of three young burn victims from Lviv, Ukraine to the United States. The children – all siblings, ages 2, 11 and 13 – were the only survivors of a devastating fire that had already claimed the lives of their parents, grandparents, and other siblings. The patients' condition wasn’t completely clear, but the doctor in Boston knew that they needed to be moved as soon as possible to a facility that was prepared to treat severe burn injuries.

Of course, we said we'd do everything we could to help. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with international air ambulance transports, nothing is ever exactly straightforward. In this case, we were talking with the doctor in Boston, who was communicating with the doctors in Lviv. At some point the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. got involved, as did U.S. officials in the Ukraine.

To say it was a complicated situation would be an understatement. The doctor in Boston was concerned that he was not getting clear, accurate information about the patient’s condition.  And the transport (like all international air ambulance transports), was going to be expensive. As the people of Lviv were coming together to find funds to pay for the flight, we were trying to figure out the best way to get three children from Eastern Europe to the U.S. – a logistically complicated feat. There are only a handful of planes in the world that can transport all three patients at once, so we were going to have to move the children separately.

Of course, we – along with everyone else involved – wanted to get to the Ukraine as soon as possible. But we also had to address the logistical issues, to ensure that we put in place a plan that would get the kids to the U.S. as soon as possible and keep them safe in transit, all while obeying international flight pilot duty rest requirements. Our focus was on doing all this as efficiently as we could while still making sure we were going to be operate a safe flight and get the children the care they needed while in transit.

The patients' condition and their ages presented another challenge. The two-year-old needed a specially-trained pediatric medical crew. And the conditions on the ground were another major challenge: the freezing weather made it extremely dangerous to move burn patients, and the Lear jets we'd be flying could only remain on the ground in Lviv for a limited time because of the cold (there was no hanger space available at the Lviv airport). All those factors made coordinating the flight plan especially complicated.

Bearing all of those complicating factors in mind – funding, diplomatic involvement, pilot duty rest requirements, freezing weather (an issue for the airplanes and for the patients), specialist medical crew requirements, and 4,300 miles between us and them – we relied heavily on our decades of experience, strong industry relationships, ingenuity, and lots of hard work to make this air medical transport happen.

We were deeply saddened when we learned that two of the three children, the 2-year-old boy and the 13-year-old girl, passed away before we arrived in Lviv. We were all devastated when we heard the news. But at the same time, we were that much more determined to ensure that the one surviving sibling – the 11-year-old boy – got to the U.S. safely.

Stay tuned for our next post to find out how we were able to successfully transport the boy from the Ukraine to Boston, and how he’s doing now.

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about whether or not insurance covers air ambulance service.  With health insurance companies, the discussion typically boils down to one factor: medical necessity.  But medical necessity can be a matter of opinion.  In some cases, for example, insurance companies have said that transporting a patient to be with family members for convalescent care is not medically necessary but rather “at the convenience of the family.”  We’d like to challenge that notion.

Many medical professionals agree with us.  In a number of reports on traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and even chronic illness, medical researchers have found that being in a “normal” environment with family members and friends leads to a speedier recovery than being in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people.

• “It has been well demonstrated through ‘The Coping and Adaptation Theory’ that when a patient has experienced a traumatic series of events being away from a ‘normal environment’ the efficacy of their care, treatment, and rehabilitation produce far inferior results than the counterpart.”  (Stacey Hoffman Barone)
• “Patients with chronic illness can benefit when their family members support them in managing their care.”  (California Health Care Foundation)
• “You [the family member] and the person with brain injury are important members of the health care team. Active participation in treatment and rehabilitation is essential to recovery. The involvement of other family members, caregivers, friends and co-workers also can help the person with brain injury successfully return home and to the community.”  (Mayo Clinic)

Many of the air ambulance medical flights that we provide are to reunite family members with their loved ones.  In one case an older woman had been spending the winter in Arizona when she suffered a debilitating stroke; we arranged a medical flight for her back to the East Coast.  In another case a man had been in Nebraska when his chronic breathing condition severely worsened; we arranged a commercial air medical escort back to Bulgaria.

Being with family members in a “normal” environment (rather than in a facility with no familiar faces) matters on a number of levels.  In part, it takes away the anxiety we all feel when we’re alone and lets the patient concentrate on recovery.  Being with family can also give patients a boost of strength and determination – both key factors in recovery.

So from our perspective, at least, being with loved ones when recovering from a traumatic injury or illness is not a matter of convenience; it’s a matter of necessity.