Coast Guard Flight

We have approximately one to three medevac patients a week during busy season.  We medevac patients who are critically ill or require hospital admittance for further evaluation and are not stable enough to fly commercial.  Sometimes the Coast Guard will get involved to help with patients.  They will go out to ships to pick up critical patients or will help us get patients off of our island if medevac flights are unable to get to us.  Usually, if the patient has already started treatment with us, the Coast Guard will request a medical escort to go with them.  

I recently got to be the escort on one of these flights!  It was awesome.  One of the medevac services was not able to make it into Dutch before nightfall, so they landed on a nearby island, Cold Bay.  We requested the Coast Guard come and take the patient from Dutch to Cold Bay to meet the medevac.  They agreed, but requested a medical escort.  I was asked if I wanted to go, and I gladly accepted!  

In the middle of the night, the patient and myself were whisked to the airport by ambulance to meet the Coast Guard helicopter.  We got the patient into the helicopter and I got set up next to him on the floor.  We took the hour and a half flight to Cold Bay and under the cover of night handed the patient off to the medevac service.  (The patient did well during both flights)

Cold Bay is just that....a bay that is VERY COLD.  Its population is less than 100 and most of the people that live there service the airport in someway.  There wasn't a place for me to stay in Cold Bay, so the Coast Guard crew said it was okay for me to stay with them in their house on Cold Bay.  It was 3:30am by the time we got to the house and ready to go to sleep.  The plan was to leave the next day back to Dutch.

Cold Bay

In the morning there was some question as to whether the crew was going to be able to take me back to Dutch or if they were supposed to head back to their ship.  That meant that I would have been left in Cold Bay until a commercial flight came through (flights stop there to refuel on their way to Dutch) or another medevac service came through to pick me up!  There were several hours that I was nervous that I would be stuck in Cold Bay by myself!!  The crew worked hard to get permission to take me back, and late that afternoon they were given the ok.  They headed out to the airport to get the helicopter out of the hanger to prepare to leave.  

They pulled the helicopter out and then came back to the house to get me.  By the time we got back to the heli ice had built up on the top and we wouldn't be able to take off.  We pulled it back into the hanger and waited for it to thaw out.  Finally, around 5:30pm the next day we were able to take off.  We had an awesome flight back to Dutch where we saw a heard of caribou on one island and a pack of wolves on another island.  It is really cool to fly in a helicopter because they fly so low to the ground you are able to see everything!  The caribou and the wolves both got scared by the helicopter and scattered quickly.   The views flying over the water were absolutely beautiful. 

It was a fun experience and the Coast Guard crew was really great to work with!  I really appreciated their hard work to get me back home. 

Thanks guys!  Mission: accomplished. :)