by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
There is exactly one good reason to find yourself within the confines of TraumaOne: you have bid on and won a flight.
Otherwise, something has gone terribly wrong that day.
TraumaOne actually consists of four helicopters owned by Air Methods and leased to Shands Jacksonville. And, it’s much more than a rescue aircraft.
The entire operation couldn’t run without the pilot, medic and registered nurse on board and the staff that mans the communications center on the first floor of one of the parking garages at the hospital. In addition to handling TraumaOne, the communications center — which is equipped with high-tech computer, radio and telephone service — coordinates all incoming patients in a rescue vehicle.
How busy everyone involved is doesn’t seem to discriminate.
“It varies,” said senior communications specialist John Coffey, who has been with Shands for 16 years. “We can have a very busy Tuesday and do nothing Saturday. It’s the nature of the beast. We are busy on heavy travel days. The first day of summer seems to be a busy day.”
TraumaOne has been a facet of Shands since 1984 and earlier this year the Springfield hospital that’s affiliated with Shands in Gainesville unveiled its second new helicopter.
While it takes a team of professionals to assure TraumaOne gets to its destination, the patient is treated and brought to the hospital, each person has a very unique and very independent role.
“The pilots have no medical training whatsoever,” said Coffey. “There is no decision-making based on emotion. We never tell them what it (the emergency) is until the pilot accepts or denies the flight.”
Weather plays a major factor in determining if TraumaOne is available. High winds and low visibility — there is a scale based on time of day — are two major reasons, no matter the severity of the emergency, that TraumaOne may stay grounded.
“We have a saying, ‘You don’t risk the lives of three to save one.’ It may sound selfish. It isn’t. It’s what we do,” said Coffey. “You have to have criteria and you have to stick to it.”
The safety of the TraumaOne crew is also important. Flying at nearly 140 miles an hour into a driving rain storm simply isn’t safe.
“I believe in what we do,” said Coffey. “I believe we are a critical part of the team. We can’t tell the pilot what to do, but we can give them critical information to make the correct decision.”
Another decision-maker is Richard “Trauma Rich” Houghton. He’s been a registered nurse for nearly 16 years — mostly in critical care — and flying for five years. He’s a husband and father and he said the worst scenes involve children. Before he had kids, Houghton said there were no qualms about cutting the jeans off a child to get to a wound. Now, he finds himself wondering if they are a favorite pair of jeans.
“It has to be the kids,” he said of his toughest cases. “That means someone did not do the right thing. The fact is, the main cause of death in kids is trauma.”
Nelson Keefer of the Shands media department said once patients are brought back to the hospital, they are delivered to one of three separate trauma centers.
356-2466