Transcription of LifeFlight crew for the show LifeFlight #142
Dr. Lisa: It’s rare that a group of guest at our Maine Magazine studio creates quite the buzz that this group of guest, has created here today. We have the LifeFlight crew based out of Bangor, or at least a few members of the LifeFlight crew based out of Bangor with us. In addition to patient who actually was basically taken from a jaws of death, by this LifeFlight crew. Of course they’re all dressed up, and very embarrassed that I’m talking about them this way.
We have with us Missy McCann, and nurse for LifeFlight McClellan paramedic for LifeFlight, and K.C. Ford who is a patient who survived plane crash injuries because of LifeFlight. Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us today.
Missy: Thank you for having us.
Dr. Lisa: You are an impressive group of individuals. I mean, I can’t say it enough. I’ve spent time, I’ve talked with a lot of people, around the state of Maine. We’re doing great things in the health care field. I can’t even describe how strongly I feel about the work that you’re doing. Because it’s hard work, it’s scary at times, it’s … That goes above and beyond what we ask of many nurses and paramedics, doctors even. It requires some guts, and it requires a lot of compassion, I think that, that was what I heard when I was talking to K.C. about her plane crash above Matinicus. Let me start with you K.C.. Tell us about your story.
K.C.: Well. I had been visiting some friends on Matinicus in the July of 2011. We took the ferry out. Took the plane back. Shortly after take-off the plane lost power and crashed into the ocean. I think what makes my story incredible is that all four people survived which makes it a very good story. We were in the water about an hour before the amazing people of Matinicus came to our rescue with lobster boats.
Then they took us back to the island where we were then flung back to the mainland. We were then taken by ambulance to hospital in Rockport. Then from there the decision was made that I needed to be LifeFlighted. LifeFlight came and they were there. They made very important decisions regarding my care. Yeah. I have … I don’t have a lot of memories.
After being plucked out of the water but I do remember. I do remember LifeFlight and I remember feeling okay. Okay, I’m going to be okay. Then coincidentally at the same time, flight paramedic Frank was taking care of my daughter Molly who had come to the hospital. Frank is legendary at my house for the kindness and just concern he showed my daughter Molly.
They took me. They took me to Lewiston where they found some life threatening injuries that if I had not been LifeFlighted, I would have died. It’s emotional being here. It’s I’m looking at my two superheroes right now, it’s incredible. I cannot say enough about LifeFlight. Amazing, amazing, amazing. People in the care is hard to describe.
Dr. Lisa: What you’re giving us, kind of the Reader’s Digest version. Matinicus is for people who were listening and don’t know it’s an island off the coast of Maine that you can’t get to easily and the plane that you got into was a single engine cessna. Which really only had room for how many?
K.C.: Five. There were four of us on the plane.
Dr. Lisa: The plane takes off and then it drops out of the sky?
K.C.: Right.
Dr. Lisa: When it drops out of the sky, the way that you survived for it sounds like an hour from what you told me is by hanging onto essentially wreckage.
K.C.: Right. We did. We were fortunate that … Well, the plane did sink but there was a piece of the plane that did not sink. Which was, which without it, I don’t think we would have been able to stay in the water that long. We were able to all cling to it. Then the lobster boats came and plucked us out of the water.
Dr. Lisa: On a Sunday, mind you?
K.C.: It was on a Sunday so they weren’t fishing.
Dr. Lisa: The fact that they were even there is nothing short of a miracle in itself.
K.C.: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. I think once they got word that the plane went down. They came, I think everyone on the island came. They’re amazing too. There’s so many people that day that came to our rescue. It’s pretty incredible.
Dr. Lisa: It’s even more of a horror story because the injuries that you had were truly life threatening. You actually had a torn aorta which is the body’s largest artery and responsible for bringing blood to most places in the body. When that gives this away, really bad things happen.
K.C.: Right.
Dr. Lisa: That’s why I’m not trying to … I say Reader’s Digest version I think because I just want people to understand just exactly how horrifying this whole experience was to be in the middle of it and how very close to dying you actually were.
K.C.: Absolutely. Right. Yes. Yes. I also had a fracture in my back as well. It’s amazing what the body can do in the face of yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Soul.
K.C.: Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I can tell that Missy wants to jump in, which is great. I think it’s, this is the kind of thing Missy that you and Frank see all the time. That’s the amazing thing to me, that this is a story and it’s a really big story, it’s a really big story that you encounter day after day after day.
Missy: I think what we don’t encounter is the patients coming back after and hearing their story from their perspective. We always like to update, get updates on our patients. See how they’re doing after that most vulnerable time in their life, most traumatic time in their life, the sickest time in their life. We don’t always get that.
I think that for us working in the health care profession, you have to put up that wall to be able to do what we do and to be able to put enough compassion to know that you’re there to care for that patient but yet not put too much emotion involved in it because it can be very, it can be very tiring when you’re doing it day in, day out. I think to be able to hear from the patient from their perspective after, and to just that raw emotion.
I get emotional myself about it. It’s just really good to hear that perspective on things. We don’t get to do that. We don’t get that a lot. I think that is really important in this story too is everybody that came together wasn’t just LifeFlight. I know this is a story about LifeFlight but it was everybody that came together. Everybody that was on K.C.’s from the lobster boats to the ambulance service, to the LifeFlight, to the surgeons at the center, it was everybody. We’re just a piece of the story.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. Yes. There were …
Missy: I think that that’s important to recognize as well. That’s everything that I have … Every encounter I’ve had with LifeFlight and speaking with Dr. Norm Dinerman and talking with Tom Judge, it’s always very clear that it’s a one big puzzle and everybody is just a piece in the puzzle. Nobody is any better than anybody else, you’re all just trying to do very high quality work in a very compassionate way and work with everybody else.
Whether you’re working with the people at Pen Bay or whether you’re working with people, the surgeons at CMMC or you’re all working together. That’s how people survive …
Dr. Lisa: For the same common goal, for the patient.
Missy: Yes.
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Dr. Lisa: It takes quite a lot to become a member of the LifeFlight team. I know that in order to even apply, you have to have a certain number of experience in a very high level critical care of emergency environment in addition to having qualification as a nurse or a paramedic. Then you go through rigorous training, then you go to training specific to working on the helicopter.
It’s broad based because you do many things. You work with infants, you work with stroke patients, you do intubations, you help patients to breathe and keep their hearts going. That’s a lot and to also be compassionate. How are you able to keep that balance?
Missy: Well, you have to … You have to keep that balance. You can’t lose that human element. You can’t … You’re just … You’re with somebody at their most vulnerable time in their life. If it means holding of their hand or a smile or taking a family member aside and telling them this is what we’re doing to your loved one and this is what’s going to happen, then that’s what that means.
If that means taking two minutes out of your time and talking to a family member, then that’s what that means. I don’t think that there’s one of us that work at LifeFlight that don’t carry that within. That’s not … I don’t know that that’s really a learned thing. I just think everybody just carries that based on what we do on the patients that we fly are the sickest.
I think that that’s really something that’s very important for us to be able to never forget. Sometimes you can do that in a health profession. I think that that’s a safety mechanism I person. I think in the healthy, some people just do that just as a safety mechanism so they kind of lose that human capacity. That’s fair enough. I don’t really see anybody in that I work with as my fellow co-workers in LifeFlight that have ever lost that human capacity myself.
I think that’s very important, don’t you, Frank?
Frank: I think across the board. It’s like a calling. There’s people down the street sitting in the station ready to walk out the door, if you have an emergency or if … No matter what it may be, it could be anything. A lot of those people it’s … That’s ingrained to them and that’s what they do and they’re good at it. As far as qualifications at LifeFlight, yes, there’s lot of stuff on paper that we need before we can even think about applying.
If Missy and I walk into the door to go to a patient whether it’s on a scene call or a facility, we have this shared well of experience that we bring in the door. That’s I think also something that LifeFlight looks at that’s important besides the certifications which there is a lot. There’s a lot of training. There’s a lot of upkeep too that certifications expire and you have to constantly keep them up.
Each of us, everybody has their own different jury that led them to where they’re at now as far as working on the helicopter. It’s all pretty interesting as far as where the experience is from. What they can pull from, in some areas, it’s critical care. It’s how many situations has this crew walked into in their past 15 to 20 years of being a medical provider that have had multiple patients or crashes.
How many patients with sepsis or having a stroke or that they walked into or babies. Okay, your three year old is hit by a car. Okay, here comes these two people. What are they going to, what’s he next step. They’re going come in, they’re going to draw from their experience. They’re going to look at things objectively as far as what’s the next step they’re going to keep the family involved and that they’re going to guide and direct what the next best step is for that person.
Missy is absolutely right. When … What it give to be there for someone when they’re helpless. The ability to do that is amazing.
Dr. Lisa: You have two different sites that you work out of Bangor and Lewiston. You fly to sites, you fly to hospitals all over the state. How has that changed your view of living in Maine yourselves, the ability to see Maine from so many different vantages points.
Missy: They say Maine is a small state. When it takes an aircraft an hour and 15 minutes to get from Bangor to Jackman or … I don’t think that that’s very small. When we cover from one end of the state of Maine to the other end of the state of Maine. I think Maine is much bigger than people, yes, it is a small state, given all these other states in the United States.
Maine is a big state, I think that we were a small state is the people. It’s the people that live in the state of Maine. It’s the friendliness of people in the state of Maine. I’ve heard people that come here in the state of Maine, they talk about how people in Maine are so friendly. Willing to help and I think that that’s just been ingrained and people that live in Maine.
I love what I do. I love the LifeFlight family. I love the patients that come back and thank us for what we can give them during one of the most trying vulnerable times in their life. That I kind of hang on to that sometimes during really stressful days when I say, oh my goodness this is my fourth flight. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I’m hot. I just want to go home.
Then I grasp onto those things that say you know what, this is worth it, this is worth it because it’s what we can give back to families.
Frank: This is healing for us too.
Missy: It is.
Frank: It is. Because it’s not always easy.
Dr. Lisa: Well, one of the things that I’m thinking about as you’ve been talking is that in K.C.’s other life, she works as an … You work as admissions officer?
K.C.: Yes. I do.
Dr. Lisa: For Colby College.
K.C.: Right.
Dr. Lisa: You’re responsible for essentially assessing whether every success of your applicants is really going to be the right kind of caliber of individual for your school.
K.C.: Right.
Dr. Lisa: You have a chance to I guess even direct what types of people these kids become.
K.C.: In a sense. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: You’re looking at two people who have become pretty arguably, pretty high caliber individuals. Are you able to use your skills in the admissions office and look at sort of the vast group of applicants and say, you know what that person has something special about person or something special. Would you be able to say that person has something special enough to do what these guys are doing?
K.C.: I think it’s a little bit tricky to make that leap from a high school. A senior in high school, their college application. We do … We are fortunate at Colby to receive applications from some pretty incredible students who I think ultimately do have the ability, the skills to do what Missy and Frank do. I think as … I think about what Missy and Frank and their colleagues do at LifeFlight.
They’re pretty special people. They’re … It’s hard to tell from a senior in high school. As I think about Missy and Frank and not only their abilities in health care. They are … They are very kind people. That’s a combination that for me in my experience with them is extremely important. It would be great if I could look into my crystal admissions ball and say yeah this one’s going to graduate and be Frank McClellan or Missy McCann.
I think we do as I said it, we do get really talented students applying.
Missy: I think that in this capacity in this role. Life experience has played a huge role. What I say that I think I could do this out of high school and no, I went to college as a non-traditional student with a seven and eight year old, work weekends and went to school during the week. I wasn’t ready then, I didn’t have the maturity at 18 years of age to go to college.
I think that the life experiences kind of help bringing that along with you in this I think is important in the role of LifeFlight. I just … I think that experiences and your own life experience in your profession. You have to have that base to start with. I just feel that it’s very strong. You have to have that base. That’s why they require you to have the critical care experience before you even start working in the aircraft.
Then at six months of additional training on top of already being a paramedic.
Frank: Which is tough and not fun. It’s not nice.
Missy: No, it’s not fun.
Frank: There’s no punches pulled. That’s very critical.
Missy: It’s molding you to be a team member on that aircraft.
Frank: We get asked. I get asked a lot. EMT students. Hey, I’m interested in eventually someday going to LifeFlight. It’s tough to answer them. Never ever will I discourage them because I was an auto mechanic who started volunteering in a place? Thought wow, I can kind of interact with people pretty well at a crisis center. I still don’ttill this day, don’t know what make me start volunteering at this crisis center.
It was, well, I’m going to take an EMT basic course at a local community college that was in ’95 and so much has happened since then but here I am. I would never discourage a student from having that goal and vision. I think I started wanting to fly maybe about eight or nine years ago. Start flying about six years ago. It’s an achievable goal. If it’s worked for and the experience is there.
Missy: A lot of work but worth it.
Frank: I’m picturing my co-workers listening to this. Hearing K.C. going oh yeah, Frank’s special.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely, everybody listen up.
Frank: There’s that level of humor around work. It’s always good.
Dr. Lisa: You spent 10 days in the intensive care unit. Once you got to Central Maine Medical Center. After you’d been stabilized, you had complications with your broken back. It took you four months before you returned to work at Colby?
K.C.: Yup.
Dr. Lisa: More than a year before you actually got better. This just … This whole LifeFlight experience was the beginning of what has been a really significant life journey for you.
K.C.: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: What are the lessons for you?
K.C.: They are many. It’s interesting that when, while this experience has stayed with me, it’s with me everyday. That being said, my life is normal. I work full-time, I do many things that I did before. Life is normal. It truly is with me pretty much every minute. In a sense, I feel … I feel almost lucky to have had this experience. Obviously because I have healed and I’m doing well.
It’s a gift to have this experience to realize all of the great gifts there are, just in a ordinary day. To be able to get up and put your feet on the floor and walk out your bedroom door and down the stairs is a gift. To look up at the sky and to walk my dogs and to look out over the ocean and just remember that I am truly one of the luckiest people there are.
It happened because of other people. So many people came together that day to help me, strangers that just came to me. It’s exceptionally humbling, I keep that with me all the time, the kindness of people is a huge takeaway for me. Now only LifeFlight but the care I received at CMMC was extraordinary. The kindness of people to my family, which in a situation like this the patient obviously has their own journey but the family has their amazing journey as well.
That’s where LifeFlight. We’ve been talking about that really stepped up the people at CMMC as well. It’s just … When I think about this whole experience and lessons learned. It’s the kindness of people that is just exceptionally humbling. To appreciate just the small things. Which are so important, your relationships with your friends and family ultimately I think are really the most important thing that you can nurture and cherish.
That’s what I tried hard to appreciate my people.
Dr. Lisa: I encourage our listeners to read the article about LifeFlight in the June issue of Maine Magazine. Also to spend time learning more about LifeFlight on the LifeFlight website. I really appreciate the time that each of you has taken out of your day to come and tell your story here on our show. I think it’s important and it really reminds me that life of course can change in an instant.
That others around you can have an impact on how that life changes. I appreciate what you’re doing for people in Maine. I appreciate your willingness to be with us.
K.C.: It’s my pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you.
Frank: The pleasure is ours.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Missy McCanny, nurse for LIfeFlight. Frank McClellan, paramedic for LifeFlight and K.C. Ford, former patient of LifeFlight and admissions officer at Colby College. Enjoy your lives guys.
Missy: We do.
K.C.: We will.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you very much. You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 142, LifeFlight. Our guest have included Dr. Norm Dinerman, Tom Judge, Missy McCann, Frank McClellan and K.C. Ford. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For preview of each week show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and on Instagram as bountiful one. We’d love to hear from you.
Please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and also of our Wellness column in Maine Magazine. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them hear. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope you’ve enjoyed our LifeFlight show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day.
May you have a bountiful life.
Male: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors. Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary By Design, Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage. Ted Carter, Inspired Landscapes, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Dream Kitchen Studios, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Our assistant producer is Leanne Ouimet. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our online producer is Kelly Clinton. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is available for download free on iTunes.
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