My medivac in Moab April 2017

Scott P might appreciate this little report, because he and I were party to a helicopter medivac in the Moab area a few short years ago.

This is my story of my own helicopter medivac in Moab in April this year.

Me and three buddies flew our four Taylorcraft aeroplanes from the mid-west (Chicago-ish) to the south-west.

Having landed at Moab airport, the 2-minute video below from my GoPro shows me backtracking the parallel taxyway, and parking up and chatting to Air Traffic and the marshalling lads. When I now look back at that video clip, I have to confess that my speech and cognitive awareness was not as I would normally expect, but it did not seem so at the time.

The first voice on the video is from Moab: "Welcome, aircraft approaching the ramp, this is Redtail [FBO] at Canyonlands, how long are you planning on staying here?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvoi...ature=youtu.be

At the end of the video, the chap ahead is guiding in aeroplane #2, and I'm chatting to another chap off to my left, and he asks "Hi, where have you come from" and you do hear my response.


Within 10 seconds of the end of that video and having got out of the aeroplane, I didn't feel well, so I sat down on the ground. I ended up flat on my back under the aeroplane, in the shade, not feeling very well at all. I had had a stomach ache for a few days (which I thought: nothing too much to worry about, I've had a stomach ache before).

And then this: I vomit "coffee grounds" (this picture was taken later):

http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2623.jpg

My flying friends and the line boys called the FBO Chief Mechanic, Gary (who happened to be the airfield Health & Safety man). He took one look at me and called 911. Gary drove me to the FBO building in a golf cart to await the ambulance. This is on a Sunday at about 5pm.

http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2595.jpg

By this time I was excreting a lot of blood, not pleasant for those around, but at least it was in the lavatory and not the open public areas.

In short order, the ambulance arrived. I was loaded onto a stretcher and on the ambulance, already on a saline drip, with my blood type "finger jab" having already been taken


http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2598.jpg


and my flying friends followed me in a car kindly lent by the airport.


http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2599.jpg

Some time passed in the Moab hospital while further tests were done, so it's now about 7pm, sunset. This was a Sunday evening. The hospital doctor had took my blood type; so fairly quickly I'm on blood products infusion now. It was obvious to him that I needed evacuation to somewhere more equipped, so a helicopter was called.

http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2605.jpg

The helicopter arrived from Grand Junction a few hours later; there had been a motor sport event in the Moab area all weekend, and I assumed it had been busy. By this time it was dark, Sunday evening, probably 10pm or so. I was still fully compus mentis (as I had been throughout, although very aware that I was rather ill). I was insistent that my friends take pictures and video for the record.

In the dark car park, I was loaded on to this helicopter from my stretcher in to the space where left-hand seat would be, but in a horizontal position.

http://www.taylorcraft.org.uk/Img_2611.jpg

It piqued my mechanical interest: the flat fixed "trolley" of the helicopter slid aft and then hinged outboard, then engaged with my hospital stretcher, whereby I was lifted from one to the other, and then allowed me to be slid in and forward, yawing horizontally so my feet slid left into the nose cone of the helicopter, and then the door could be closed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGBO7GF5JfM&feature=youtu.be

My friends were then left to make their own arrangements to go to pre-booked accommodation in Green River; fortunately the airport allowed them to keep the car overnight.

I don't know what helicopter it was, other than it was a single-engine, with me (the patient) in the Left; Joe the pilot in the right and Bill & Elizabeth the two nurses behind. We took off directly eastbound from Moab over unlit territory to Grand Junction. Joe was using night vision goggles, but I could see all the dimmed flight instruments. My eye line was about 3 inches above the glazing line, so I could see pretty much all the instruments but it was black as a witches tit outside. If I weren't bloody strapped in to the stretcher like a cadaver, I would have taken a picture of the panel!

We crossed the mountains at about 120 kts, and up to 12000 feet. Climbing through 9000 they made me breath 02 through a nasal canula (they had pre-warned me of this). The three flight crew (pilot & two medics) were brilliant. I would never undertake a single-engine helicopter flight, let alone at night and over dark mountains, but they were just brilliant. It was bloody noisy, though, and the whole helicopter vibrated like a dog shaking off water.

After 65 miles or so across some of the most empty territory in the lower 48, the landing was on the 12th storey helipad of the hospital in Grand Junction, at about 11 that Sunday evening. The Gastro-Enterology surgeon was waiting for me, having been called in, I later learned.

Within moments I was in theatre. The GE specialist explained that he would send a scope down my throat, and blew a spray down my mouth to prevent a gagging reflex. He then said he'd knock me out with anaesthetic, and that was the...last........thing........I...............rem e................


I recall being woken up about an hour later (because the GE surgeon had previously asked me for contact details of whom he should call, and my friends got the call at 1am or so).

Next morning I awoke in a hospital bed.

All in all, I had had four units of blood replacement products transfused. I stayed on a drip for two days, then was allowed up to walk around (with mobile drip stand in tow). Then on to pills for an extra night of monitoring before being discharged on the Wednesday. I'm still on some of those pills now, to reduce the chance of a recurrence.

The cause? My "stomach ache" was a duodenal ulcer, either caused by or exacerbated by the bacterium h.pylori, which ended up perforating a blood vessel in my small intestine, probably fairly shortly before I landed ay CNY. The surgery that night (through my aesophagus and stomach) cauterised the bleed.

The total cost for medical treatment was in the order of $54,000, of which $32,000 was the helicopter ride. All of it (less the £150 excess) was covered by my travel insurance. The best £23 I ever spent.

The surgeon who operated on me was also a private pilot. It was he who suggested I stay an extra day (from the Tuesday to the Wednesday) for observation, knowing that I would be flying. My response to him was "You're the doctor; I'll do whatever you say".

I had told him of my prior Canyoneering and Hiking times in the Utah back-country. He said that that I was less than six hours from the start of organ failure, so it was lucky I was caught when I was.

So I was released from hospital on the Wednesday. I booked a taxi to drive me back to Moab CNY airport, but it was too late that day to fly. Gary (the H&S chap mentioned above) hugged me when I turned up, and we are firm friends now. I booked into a motel for the night.

The next day I flew to Tucson Arizona to meet up with my three Taylorcraft buddies who had in the meantime been to California. That next day's flight for me was a wonder, because I flew across Robbers Roost; touched at several back-country strips and flew past Sandthrax Campground.

I'll post those in a future report. Keep well, folks, you don't know when you will meet your last day.

Rob