by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
For most people headed to the hospital for either an emergency as the result of a 9-1-1 call or a scheduled surgery or to visit a friend or a relative, there is an element of planning.
For 4,300 people a year in the Northeast Florida/Southeast Georgia area, a trip to Shands Jacksonville wasn’t on their agenda — and certainly not while strapped to a gurney in the back of a helicopter after suffering potentially fatal injuries.
In a nutshell, that describes the life of those who fly and work out of TraumaOne at Shands transporting patients to the hospital’s trauma center.
Thursday, officials at Shands were joined by Mayor John Peyton and City Council member Johnny Gaffney as Shands rolled out the latest version of TraumaOne. The affair was one of mixed emotions — pride over the new TraumaOne combined with the stark reality of why it’s needed in the first place.
Dr. Miren Schinco said TraumaOne was first developed 26 years ago by Dr. Ray Alexander. Since then, thousands of people have been saved by the pilots who fly the helicopters and the nurses and paramedics that staff TraumaOne.
“Trauma is a disease of injury,” said Schinco. “It happens quick and there is no warning. It is a disease of the young and it strikes abruptly and in the most productive years of a life.”
TraumaOne is often on the scene of a major vehicle crash, fire, building or construction disaster, shooting or other incident in which a life hangs in the balance and saving that life becomes a matter of getting medical treatment as quickly as possible. Greg Miller, vice president of hospital operations at Shands, said every trauma victim regardless of their injuries have a couple of things in common.
“No one expected it and they didn’t get out of bed thinking they would put their life in the hands of others,” said Miller. “The TraumaOne teams are heroes by every measure.”
Mayor John Peyton praised the pilots, nurses, paramedics and doctors that work on both TraumaOne and in the trauma center. Peyton said while he was campaigning in 2003, he witnessed firsthand a TraumaOne team at work. A lady had been struck by a car so violently, he said it knocked her out of her shoes.
“She had severe head trauma. Watching the team do their miracle work was an amazing experience. It was nothing short of miraculous,” said Peyton, explaining that six months later, after he was installed as mayor, the victim came to visit. “Her goal was to walk to the threshold of my office. She got up out of her wheelchair and walked a few steps. I still have her picture in my office.”
TraumaOne consists of five components: the trauma center, flight services, communications/dispatch, trauma prevention and education, and emergency preparedness. In 2008, 74 percent of the trauma patients treated at Shands were the victims of vehicle crashes, motorcycle crashes, falls and pedestrian accidents.
While the TraumaOne team consists of pilots, nurses and paramedics, the pilots have no medical training and are not told the nature of the call. Their only major decision is to determine if it is safe to fly to the scene of an accident and the proper route to take based on Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Literature on TraumaOne provided by Shands explains that this helps the pilots remain emotionally detached from the emergency in an effort to concentrate solely on flying the helicopter.
Once at TraumaOne, patients are treated by board-certified University of Florida doctors and staff. The trauma center has a high-tech surgical/trauma intensive care unit, a step-down unit and a post trauma unit equipped with the most up-to-date lifesaving equipment.
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