PHOTOS: No two calls are ever the same for the crew of MedForce Aeromedical Transport.
But when the sleek, blue-and-yellow medical helicopter transport is called to the scene of a crash, fire or near-drowning, the crew – and the public – knows it’s serious.
“There's a lot of calls. All the calls are bad,” said Justin Hicks, a six-year flight nurse for MedForce. “Some are a little bit worse than others, but at the end of the day, we're taking the sickest everywhere. ... Sometimes they have good outcomes. But, you know, sometimes they don't either.”
MedForce, a non-profit emergency medical helicopter transport service, has been a staple in the Quad-Cities for almost 19 years, transporting regionally patients in need of specialty medical or trauma care. MedForce receives about 1,400 flight requests a year and ultimately transports 1,000 patients a year, said Kevin Takacs, president and chief executive officer at MedForce.
Working on and transporting children and the elderly can be especially difficult. And sometimes the crew has to transport one of their fellow first responders, like the case of Adam Cain.