As the flight nurse stepped into the relative darkness of the ground ambulance's interior, one of the emergency medical technicians said to him, “You've got to take both of them.” Quickly assessing the husband and wife patients, the flight nurse answered, “If I take both of them, they'll both die.” In the moment of sobering silence that followed, a thin voice climbed up out of the two broken bodies and somehow made it to the flight nurse's ear: “Take my husband.”
Air Life expects the new EC-145 to enter service in central Oregon some time this summer. Although this article has tended to focus on the staggered two-patient interior and the Aerolite floor, the design process involved literally hundreds of hours of discussion and thought regarding scores of details, such as placement of suction, oxygen outlets, electrical sources, and intercom controls.
Respiratory therapist Michele Moore described the process as “painful. Unless you want to come out with something exactly like you had before, you should expect friction, and conflict. And yet the process also involved a lot of respect for each other, for the program, and for ourselves. I feel good about the effort I put into the committee. At times it didn't seem worth it, but now I can't imagine not doing it.”
1 Pilot Ken Cox flies for Air Life of Oregon in Bend.
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