5 MEDICAL PEOPLE OF INTEREST
The AIR RESCUE MEDIC
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BY SUE-ELLEN SANDERS
PHOTO BY ED DRONDOSKI
Brett Anderson can tell stories that will curl
your hair.
As a flight medic for Lifestar, the helicopter that
transports critically injured patients through a
cooperative effort with Martin County Fire Rescue,
he’s seen the worst of car accidents. He’s helped to save lives
that teetered on the brink.
Anderson is one of twelve (6 fulltime and 6 part-time) air
medics who staff Lifestar, two on each 24-hour shift. The local
aeromedical program has served as a business model for
other programs because it was the first of its kind nationwide
that paired a private contractor (Air Methods) with a public
agency to provide air transport in times of critical need.
Air Methods provides the helicopter and pilot and Martin
County Fire Rescue provides the flight medics. “Providing
rescue services in a helicopter is a special challenge, “admits
Anderson. “You all have to work together to keep things
safe.” That’s why Brett Anderson and some of the other medics
also have aviation training.
Seventy-five percent of the calls for Lifestar’s services involve
serious trauma injury, like car accidents, shootings and
falls from buildings. The car accidents haunt Anderson, who
hopes his telling about them will change the risks people take.
Anderson has witnessed the fresh, sharp pain of a parent
who has just lost their child because they weren’t in a car seat
or seat belt. He has smelled the over-powering stench of the
mixture of alcohol and blood before he even sees the beer
cans tossed in what’s left of the back seat of the car. These are
the things that often keep him from sound sleep at night.
As a paramedic, Anderson has become somewhat conditioned
to the blood and gore that surround him in the
worst of the trauma emergencies that call for Lifestar. “It’s
the senseless stuff — the accidents from drinking and driving
and not wearing seat belts — that I can never forget,”
says Anderson.