3 minute read
OLD NOVOS ON A HELICOPTER ABHINAV SINGH
OLD NOVOS ON A HELICOPTER
BY ABHINAV SINGH (95-04)
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Stop me if this sounds familiar. You turn up to work in Cambridge (or wherever else you’ve migrated to) and start chatting to one of your colleagues. You hear a Geordie twang in their accent. Maybe it was the way they said ‘university’. You ask tentatively where they’re from, and smile when they confirm that they’re a Northerner. Not only that, but they went to RGS. Great! This’ll keep the conversation going a couple more minutes!
Even more impressively, you’re informed that another colleague on the same shift with you is also from the RGS! You all sit down and start discussing important things like which House everyone was in and whether anyone can still remember what Discendo duces means.
And then suddenly the phone rings. You all strap on your helmets, get into the helicopter, and fly out to a patient that needs you.
This all happened at work a few months ago. I was on shift with senior doctor Ed Gold (84-95) and pilot Hal Eriksen (88-93). All three of us have ended up working for East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), a helicopter emergency medical service that covers the east of England region, bringing critical care to the sickest patients that need transporting to hospital. It’s the air ambulance service that Prince William was a pilot for until 2017!
A typical shift involves arriving around 06:45 and first performing all the safety checks, ensuring we have all the necessary equipment to provide immediate care to our patients. We then wait for the phone to ring. Sometimes this takes several hours, sometimes it happens immediately. What happens next, however, only takes 2-4 minutes. We don our helmets and collect up any additional pieces of equipment we might require. Meanwhile, the pilots are planning the flight as best they can and doing final checks on the helicopter so that we are safe to fly. And then: take-off. During the flight, we plan how to approach the situation with the very limited information we receive. Is it a car crash, with a difficult extrication and multiple casualties, or is it a convulsing child that requires emergency anaesthesia? Once on scene, we assess the patient and work out how to get them to hospital as quickly as possible. As part of this process, we plan which procedures the patient requires before transport, and which ones can possibly wait until the final destination.
One minute, your fingers can freeze whilst treating a patient outside and the next you’re having to strip down because the ambulance is getting too hot inside. You are expected to react in the moment and can never plan too far ahead because the scenes (and patients) can change in an instant. You are exposed to sights, sounds and smells that linger long after the shift has finished.
And yet, we all love it. You see patients in their home environments and get an insight into their lives that is just not possible in hospital. Treating the most critically unwell people encourages you to utilise all of your knowledge and ingenuity. You work with incredibly dedicated teammates, who can make you laugh, and then help you debrief a particularly difficult job.
Hal, Ed and I all left RGS at different times, and took very different routes to end up where we are now, but the nostalgic feeling is no less enjoyable. When the job is at its most challenging, it’s great to know that sometimes you’ve got a couple of RGS lads backing you up!
Treating the most critically unwell people encourages you to utilise all of your knowledge and ingenuity. You work with incredibly dedicated teammates, who can make you laugh, and then help you debrief a particularly difficult job.”
