Air Methods Prehospital EDucation Podcast

Transporting a newborn in distress already involves extreme logistical complexity, as you'll hear in this month's episode where our team is tasked with taking a newborn experiencing acute shortness of breath. But what happens when the mother starts to decompensate right alongside her baby? Now our team is tasked with caring for two patients, and how they tackle that complexity is the focus of this...

At a motorcycle track, a middle-aged man suffers a massive crash off a jump. Byt the time our team arrives on scene, the man is inflating like a balloon suffering from massive structural-distorting subcutaneous emphysema. The massive air pockets completely obliterated his normal anatomy, leaving them to guess: Do we blindly plunge decompressing needles into his chest where the landmarks have compl...

A man in a high speed, rollover motor vehicle crash experiences a multitude of symptoms including hemorrhagic shock and profound respiratory distress. As our team assesses him, they attempt multiple needle decompressions to relieve pressure and improve breathing. None are successful. Having recently received training and approval to do a finger thoracostomy, they talk with their lead clinician and...

On this episode of AMPED, when our team arrives on scene for a pediatric head trauma case in a 10-month old, everything at first seems normal and under control. But in that calm, something feels off to one of our clinicians and he believes our patient faces imminent peril. Does he defer to the doctor on scene who has given assurances that everything is fine, or does he listen to his intuition and...

When our crew is dispatched to an extremely rural location, they find our patient has fallen off an a-frame ladder and been impaled in the chest by a large piece of rebar on the ground. We know that in dealing with impalements, removal or jostling of the object can cause a host of problems for the patient, so the team must take great care in transporting him to a location where removal and treatme...

Our crew was dispatched to a high energy, rollover MVC with a patient ejection, which usually demands aggressive trauma protocols. But what happens when the patient is equipped with a HeartMate II, a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) that pumps blood for failing hearts. The irony is that this extremely sophisticated medical device that keeps our patient alive, also precludes our team from gath...

On this show we have espoused the general guiding principal of "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." Sometimes the hoofbeats actually are those of zebras. But what if sometimes there not even zebras, they're unicorns? On this episode of AMPED, our patient has been bitten by a Jameson's Mamba, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. Thankfully, he is an expert herpetologist who is...

A brutal incident where a woman gets hit by a truck leaves her with a multitude of injuries, most notably both of her legs bent into a position best described as "frog legs." She's in good spirits and her vitals are good, but her legs bent at that angle means that she cannot fit into our team's helicopter. How does our team get her legs back into place without causing further trauma or risking her...

In an incredible twist of irony, this month's case focuses on our flight crew loading into their helicopter to be dispatched to... a patient who has fallen out of a helicopter. From a height of approximately 40 feet and at a speed of 30 knots, our patient has an abundance of injuries, which requires our team to remember their axiom: "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." This episode also introduce...

A common aphorism in the medical community comes from Dr. Theodore Woodward who said in the 1940s, "When you hear hoofbeats behind you, think of horses, not zebras." It's a way of reminding medical practitioners that the most common explanation is usually correct. In other words, Occam's Razor is usually correct. But what happens when the most common explanation isn't correct? What happens when yo...

Extreme weather once again plays an important factor in this month's case where our team comes upon a car accident victim who has a litany of injuries that make care extremely challenging, even in optimal conditions. Featuring a pilot for the first time ever in AMPED history, we hear from our clinicians about how to give our patient the best shot at survival, and from our pilot about the many cons...

A severely ill Flu A patient, fully intubated, and fighting for every breath requires the AMPED team for transport for possible ECMO. Under even the best of circumstances, this type of patient requires extensive care and presents many challenges. But what happens when extreme weather causes problems with the team's equipment, making care even more challenging? Find out how our team dealt with and...

A car accident on the highway sees the vehicle rollover nine times and ejects our patient out of the vehicle with a multitude of life threatening injuries. Our team refers to our patient as the sickest trauma patient any of them had ever seen. The outlook is very bleak, but our team perseveres and gives every effort to help increase the patient's odds of survival. While not ultimately successful,...

A motorcycle accident leaves our patient with a litany of serious injuries and severe bleeding, yet he remains alert and talking to the team... but that's not the only one he talks to. Our patient puts his life in the hands of a higher power and our Air Methods crew as they work to address his numerous injuries and ailments and get him to a hospital. Hear from the patient himself through this harr...

As our team is out saving lives, we're excited to revisit one of the most harrowing episodes in our archives from January 2023. This remarkable story has a multitude of valuable lessons and insights you're going to love. See you next month with fresh content! It's a different type of episode today on AMPED. We're joined by Ridley Barron, a Senior Pastor at Grove Hill Church in Chapel Hill, TN, and...

  Our team is dispatched to a scene where they understand a pregnant woman is experiencing footling breech during the birthing process. When they arrive, they find the baby already delivered and being tended to with Basic Life Support practices, although she is in rough shape. How does the team pivot? What steps do they take as the baby is in cardiac arrest? The answer, as it frequently is, is to...

When two flight teams are dispatched to a scene, usually the first to arrive takes the sicker of the patients. What happens when circumstances on the ground change that? How do the teams tag in and tag out with one another? On this episode of the AMPED Podcast, a high speed highway collision sees patients with a litany of maladies including traumatic brain injuries. Our team identifies and handles...

A pinkie promise is a promise you cannot break, and it's one our patient in this month's episode made to his wife when he was stricken with a life-threatening COVID infection. She made him promise that he would pull through the ordeal, and he did... but not without many bumps in the road.    Our team not only battled our patient's COVID, but also a nasty case of pneumonia that ultimately led to hi...

The holidays are a time for hope, a time for believing in the extraordinary. Remember that classic holiday film,  Miracle on 34th Street ? Just when everyone's lost faith, a series of unexpected events bring about the impossible. Well, this week on the Air Methods Prehospital Education Podcast, we bring you a real-life story that echoes that same spirit. It's a case of resilience, determination, a...

A gruesome head-on motorcycle accident causes this month's patient a litany of injuries. He has bilateral femur fractures, a large open wound on his abdomen and much more... and he's awake the whole time. He is cognizant, lucid, and chatting with our team through the entire ordeal. Is he experiencing neurogenic shock? And if he is experiencing neurogenic shock, can he be electrically paced? There'...

A seemingly simple heart attack gives our team pause because the patient presents a litany of conflicting symptoms. Should our team send him to have a stent put in right away - as is standard procedure - or do they wait to address the other symptoms and risk muscle damage? What would you do if you were in their position? Our hosts consider the symptoms and give their own recommendations while our...

A motorcycle accident victim faces dire circumstances and our team has to execute a new procedure that is rarely done in the field and has a high degree of risk if not done correctly. They are one of the only teams in the region equipped to even do such a procedure, and our team is concerned about doing it correctly because a lot can go wrong. Could you do a procedure you don't normally do with an...

Presented with a patient whose symptoms seem contradictory then flip, change and remain unclear, our team must continue to work to keep the patient alive. What's causing the duress for our patient? Is it an aneurysm? Is it neoplastic process? Cardiac arrest? Some combination of these factors? Our team remains nimble, attentive, and diligent in their work. What lessons can we learn from this case?...

Summer season has our clinicians busy and therefore we are re-sharing Episode 35 featuring the harrowing journey of a brave 10 year-old boy. See you next month with fresh content!   As first responders, the odds of patient survival are not always in our favor. But that does not stop us from working quickly to provide the highest level of care for the chances of defying those odds. In this episode,...

Sometimes the hardest part is the waiting. When our team is dispatched to a scene where a man who does not speak English is trapped inside a confined space with possible crush injuries, hypothermia and hyperkalemia, they must wait for him to be extricated. How do you stand that interminable time? How do you stay ready? And then how do you switch from inaction to action once it's time? Our team tac...