Flight paramedics are highly trained emergency medical technicians who specialize in airlifting injured patients. They stabilize patients in the field, treat them during the flight, and deliver them to the hospital. To join a flight team, a paramedic typically must have at least five years of EMT experience in critical care and obtain flight paramedic certification. Flight paramedics are often considered among the paramedic elite, and they work in teams with a flight nurse and aircraft pilot. They are used in rural communities, disaster situations, and military operations.
Paramedic services are a familiar part of most communities, and calling an ambulance is an almost universal way to receive emergency care, at least in urban areas. For outlying communities, as well as for disaster situations and many military operations, emergency medical services often come by air. A flight paramedic is an emergency medical technician, or EMT, who specializes in airlifting injured or injured patients. Flight paramedics are responsible for stabilizing patients in the field, treating them during the flight and finally delivering them to the hospital with a complete report of injuries and treatments performed.
At a basic level, a flight paramedic is a doctor with specialized training in trauma situations. Flight crews are generally only dispatched for extreme emergency situations. They are called upon to transport critical patients when driving to a hospital would take longer than the patient, without treatment, would survive. It is the job of a flight paramedic to find the injured person(s) on the spot, stabilize them for air travel, load them into the aircraft, and treat them en route to surgery or more specialized hospital care.
Flight paramedics are often considered among the paramedic elite, as many years of field experience are usually required before being eligible to join an emergency flight crew. Performing medical treatments and procedures in an airplane or helicopter is a little different science from the back of a moving ambulance. While the required procedures are often the same, factors such as altitude and air quality can affect how they should be performed.
To join a flight team, a paramedic typically must have at least five years of EMT experience in critical care, although specific requirements vary by jurisdiction. Most of the time, an up-and-coming flight paramedic must also obtain flight paramedic certification. Typically, certification is achieved by passing a series of exams focused on the specifics of the flight trauma experience.
Medical flights are usually dispatched with a team of medical transport personnel that includes at least one flight nurse and one paramedic, plus at least one aircraft pilot. The flight paramedic is almost always a nurse’s level and skill graduate, but in most situations, he works in a team. In practice, both the nurse and paramedic act as the flight EMT on the job. The pilot is generally not a medical professional.
There are a number of paramedic careers that focus on flying. In rural communities, most accidents and serious injuries require transport by helicopter or plane, and paramedics recruited for these posts must be ready and willing to fly. Flight paramedics in urban areas respond to mass casualty situations when the nearest hospitals are at capacity and also transport critical patients between hospitals in certain circumstances. Most military medics are also trained and certified as flight paramedics, particularly those stationed in war zones or in more desolate regions of the world.
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