There is nothing unusual about an object landing at the Inverness Golf Club. But those objects are usually much smaller and rounder.
A helicopter from the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network (UCAN) touched down at the course on Sunday as part of training UCAN provided for the EMS RoadDocs Illinois.
A University of Chicago Aeromedical Network lands at Inverness Golf Club during a Sunday training event for members of EMS RoadDocs Illinois.
Steve Zalusky/szalusky@dailyherald.com
The landing provided an entertaining note to end the proceedings, but the training that preceded it was serious business.
It covered various issues, including clearing the area for a landing, transferring the patient, and getting out safely. There also were discussions about crash landings.
Michelle Lambright, a flight nurse with the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network, lectures members of the EMS RoadDocs Illinois on Sunday at the Inverness Golf Club.
Steve Zalusky/szalusky@dailyherald.com
“We partner with agencies that have the potential to call us and need us for patient transfers,” said Michelle Lambright, a UCAN flight nurse who conducted Sunday’s training at the golf club.
One of those organizations is EMS RoadDocs, which provides medical support for many events, including charity rides.
RoadDocs is a motorcycle group that consists of current and retired health care professionals and first responders.
“There is a diversity of medical people here,” said a member of the group’s board, Steve Mosias. “There is a retired cardiac nurse from Lutheran General.”
Others include a retired fire department lieutenant and a flight nurse who takes part in honor flights to Washington, DC.
Lambright talked about the safety protocol used by helicopter emergency medical service, “four to go, one to say no.” That means that if one of the parties on a flight, including the two nurses, a pilot and a dispatcher, withholds their approval to take off, the flight is canceled.
Situations calling for helicopter transport include those with a time-sensitive diagnosis, such as a stroke, or a trauma patient involved in a motor vehicle accident.
EMS RoadDocs Illinois was well represented with motorcycles, as well as the organization’s Medical Support Vehicle, a mobile unit that contains everything from Automated External Defibrillators to orange traffic cones.
The group participates in about 50 charity events focused on people with special needs, those living with cancer and veterans.
“We do a little bit of everything,” Mosias said.
