A Day In The life Of A Transport Nurse

We were taking some pics for the transport program and I thought I would post a few from one from start to finish. It involves the transport of a sick infant from Reno, Nevada to our hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area which is about 250 miles away. While Reno is within range of our BK-117 chopter, it is unpresurized and alot slower. Since the trip involves a climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, the fixed wing aircraft is faster and more importantly it can be presurized. We took alot of pictures and names have been removed to protect the innocent



We have to get our equipment to the airfield so we take a ride in one of our dedicated transport rigs.



This is the standard set of equipment for fixed wing transports. The red bag contains our support equipment which are emergency drugs, narcotics, IV supplies, chest tubes, etc. The Blue bag is the respiratory bag which contains all our airway / intubation equipment. We have full monitoring capacity and can perform a large percentage of procedures that are usualy done in an ICU while on transport such as intubation, chest tube placement etc.





This is the view from the tarmac at Moffet Federal Airfield. The hanger used to house Navy blimps back in the 20's and 30's


We do not own a fixed wing aircraft so we contract out with a company called Reach. The aircraft is a Turbo Commander (Yes thats what it is called). The man in the light blue flight suit is the pilot, the woman in the dark blue flight suit is one of the other Transport Specalists (we have a total of 4), the top part of the gurney has to be slowly wedged into a door that is barely as wide as the equipment



This is the view foreward from the back seat. You can see how tight things are. If a kid crashes you can see its really tight quarters in which to try to intervene.



Nuff said Talk about a multi tasker!!!!



On approach to Reno International Airport



Yes that is a taxi. In Reno the ambulance company will NOT pick us up unless we have a patient. It really blows if they do not have a big one and we have to take apart out equipment to get it into the back of a sedan in a snowstorm (I have had to do that) so we take a taxi to the hospital


back in the rig after spendign about 30 minutes getting the patient ready. Hes cute and stable!



Loading back into the plane for the trip back to LPCH.



Back in the aircraft, you can see how tight it is




Nuff said. I may not be much to look at, but Im just a nurse much like any nurse you would find in Greek Mythology


After we landed, the National Guard detachemt started doing low level drop over the runway for practice. Note the open door.


On the way home and the patient is still looking good.



back home at last. The nurse in white is the ICU nurse that will be taking care of the patient

Total elapsed time is about 6 hours.

[edit on 9/20/06 by FredT]

Very cool! Thank you so much for sharing these! Your little patient is so cute, and I hope he will be okay. And it was very nice to finally get to see you, Fred!

*wavey wavey*

Keep saving them li'l babies for us!

FredT!

Now thats some magnificant piccies you posted there - Great to see people who are proud of their health care work and you appear to enjoy your job - Good for you!

hey, its also great to see a good advocate for male nurses - Theres a strange stigma attached to male nursing by some, and its about time that it stopped...


Hey hey one thing I got to know.... Got a source for those vomit / pee cups??? Thats some thing that looks handy for long road transfers as well