00;00;00;11 - 00;00;55;05 Cary And now America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall. Hello, America. Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate Show broadcasting coast to coast across USA. From Alaska to Florida. All the way to Hawaii. About 294 affiliates now. Thanks to all of you in the listening audience. My producer, Darren Wilhite, I'm your host, CaryHall. This is your show, America, as I said. Thank you for joining us and making us one of the most listened to talk shows throughout the United States. If you want to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you can do that at AHARadioShow. That's how you follow me. If you have questions or comments, you can also go to the website Health Radio dot U.S. Health Radio dot us. Send me an email. If you've got a question or something I can help you with, I'm happy to do it. I get a lot of e-mails, but I answer each and every one of them. So feel free to do that. All right. Joining me in studio after a bit of a hiatus, Matt Daugherty from LifeFlight Eagle. Glad to have you back. 00;00;55;06 - 00;00;55;28 Matt Great to see you again. 00;00;55;29 - 00;01;12;07 Cary It's good to have you back up here. Also joining us today for our show is a gentleman by the name of Jay Fabing Jay is a patient that was flown by LifeFlight Eagle. And Jay jumps out of helicopters and this is a show showed usually not helicopters, airplanes. And this is a show that I don't think I've ever done before. 00;01;12;07 - 00;01;17;25 Cary Matt, we've got a lot of shows over the last 15 years. We've never done a show about somebody jumping out of an airplane. 00;01;17;26 - 00;01;22;10 Matt Jay Is the first time, the first person I've met who's expressed a desire to jump out of a helicopter. 00;01;22;10 - 00;01;39;02 Cary Which he did just before we went on the air. Yeah. Yeah. And also joining us is Josh Lighting. He is the flight nurse. When they flew Jay after he had an accident, when he when he parachuted out of the plane. And we're going to talk about that day and what happened. And his flight nurse, Josh Lighting, is also joining us. 00;01;39;02 - 00;01;43;26 Cary So, Matt, why don't you kind of set the stage here and tell people what happened? Because this is a little unusual. 00;01;44;13 - 00;02;17;13 Matt It is a little bit unusual. And it certainly caught my eye when Jay sent us a real nice note after after his flight and while he was during his recovery to tell us how much he appreciated our our crews and what they had done for him. But pretty remarkable story. And I think you will enjoy hearing his experience. I know he won't probably enjoy reliving some of that pain and trauma, but it really is a good testament to when all the systems worked together, how they came to came together to save his leg and make him to the point where he's going to be able to jump again for too long. 00;02;17;14 - 00;02;31;17 Cary He hasn't done that while doing so. So, Jay, let's talk a little bit about what you do. You've jumped, done parachute jumps about 2500 times. So before we get to the actual story. Talk a little bit about your I guess this is a hobby that you do. Yeah. You know, you don't do it for a living, obviously. 00;02;31;21 - 00;02;37;02 Jay No. I mean, I have worked as a videographer at the drop zone, but no, it's it's for fun mostly. 00;02;37;06 - 00;02;42;09 Cary And so talk a little bit about what you do. You're in a club. You guys go up and fly and and how does all that work? 00;02;42;18 - 00;03;01;20 Jay It's not actually a club. It's just a business. My home drop zone is Skydive. Kansas City in Butler, Missouri. And we've got a group of 30 to 40 active, experienced jumpers. So we just meet out there generally Saturday and Sundays and organize, jumps ourselves and jump all day. You know, we'll make five or six jumps a day, maybe on a good day. 00;03;01;21 - 00;03;05;04 Cary From what height? And you go up, what kind of an airplane and how does all this work? 00;03;05;05 - 00;03;10;17 Jay We jump out of a King Air and we exit from 14,000 feet, sometimes 14 and a half. 00;03;10;17 - 00;03;13;27 Cary Okay. So on this particular day, this is before the Saturday or so? 00;03;13;27 - 00;03;14;26 Jay Yeah, it was a Saturday. 00;03;14;27 - 00;03;19;02 Cary Okay, you you you're going up for your first, second, third, fourth jump. What was it? 00;03;19;13 - 00;03;20;26 Jay It was my first jump of the day. 00;03;20;27 - 00;03;21;10 Cary Okay. 00;03;21;10 - 00;03;25;09 Jay Yeah, it was me and five of my friends. We did a six way. 00;03;25;18 - 00;03;27;06 Cary Okay. And so what happened? 00;03;27;18 - 00;03;53;00 Jay Well, the jump went fine, you know, the free fall part. And then after my parachute opened, it opened fine. I'm flying back to the drop zone, and I kind of put myself in a bad situation by messing around and not hitting on my downwind leg towards the landing area soon enough. So I was kind of short coming back to the drop zone and I made a terrible error of, you know, just kind of tunnel vision on getting to the landing zone, which is where you shouldn't do. 00;03;53;10 - 00;04;12;13 Jay And I was trying to do as close as I could because it was a hot day and I didn't want to walk, ironically. And so when you turn a parachute, it also dives. Okay. And so I made my turn to try to get back into the wind to let the parachute dove. And when I flared to stop the parachute, I was just a little bit too low. 00;04;12;27 - 00;04;31;16 Jay And and I impacted obviously took all the energy on my left leg, broke my fibula, dislocated foot, basically tore all the tendons and ligaments is what I was told. And then the worst part was the tibia came through the skin on the right side. So I had an open bone wound. 00;04;31;20 - 00;04;43;19 Cary Yeah. When I read this, he landed too fast shattering his fibula, driving the tibia through the skin and into the ground. Yeah, that's right. His ankle and tendons. Josh, this sounds pretty bad. 00;04;43;23 - 00;05;07;04 Josh I had was definitely pretty bad. We were worried about the amount of bleeding he had. I did require a tourniquet, but we weren't able to control the bleeding with just pressure alone. So the additional tourniquet that was required, we did have to stabilize the leg for the flight, but that was, you know, having a 23 minute air flight versus over an hour ground bumpy ambulance. 00;05;07;17 - 00;05;11;28 Josh I think that's a big contribution to why his he was able to save his leg. 00;05;12;11 - 00;05;24;18 Cary So just you obviously, you guys weren't the first on the scene. So the local paramedic teams were the first folks on the scene. Yep. And then they saw the situation and said, we can't handle this. Is that basically what happened? 00;05;24;25 - 00;05;41;14 Josh Yep. And so that's when they summons for us. And then we come and, you know, we're our benefit is our speed. You know, we come, we get to this scene as quick as we can. We try to, you know, wrap them up, package them prepared for flight, and then we get into the hospital as quick as we can. 00;05;41;15 - 00;05;45;15 Cary And I'm guessing is probably you don't get a lot of parachute calls on a daily basis, not. 00;05;45;15 - 00;05;46;02 Josh On a daily. 00;05;46;07 - 00;05;48;13 Cary What was this? Was this a first? 00;05;48;22 - 00;05;52;09 Josh This is my first. But my partner that I was on shift with that day, that was not her first. 00;05;52;10 - 00;06;07;21 Cary Oh, really? So this has happened before? Yeah. Okay. All right. So just sounds like so, you know, is this something that, you know, in your club you've got you said like 30 members. Is this does this happen on a frequent basis or a reasonable not or. It's very unusual. 00;06;07;22 - 00;06;26;22 Jay That's unusual. Unfortunately, we've had three LifeFlights in the last three years. So and in the last three years, we had one a year. But before that, you know, it might have been five or six years before it LifeFlight had been out there and not sure. So it's fairly unusual out of my 2500 jumps, this is the first injury I've ever had of any kind. 00;06;26;27 - 00;06;36;17 Cary Well, that's pretty, pretty remarkable. So, yeah, so, so man It sounds to me like that if you're in a parachute club, you're getting a LifeFlight Eagle membership. Might be a really good thing to do. Mike. 00;06;36;29 - 00;06;40;12 Matt But I'm a little biased, but I think everybody should have one. But yes, I think definitely. 00;06;40;27 - 00;06;43;20 Cary I would say the priority list goes up if you're jumping out of airplanes. 00;06;43;20 - 00;06;51;03 Matt Absolutely. Anybody who's jumping out of airplanes or doing ATVs and dirt bikes and stuff like that, those high risk activities would I would absolutely recommend a membership. 00;06;51;18 - 00;07;09;18 Cary Because I think back all the shows we've done over all the years, we've done a lot of shows as people that are on ATVs and dirt bikes and motorcycles. And this is the first one we've done with people jumping out of airplanes. Indeed. Yeah. So so, Jay, I'm guessing that you were conscious during all of this, even though after you'd hit the ground. 00;07;09;20 - 00;07;27;09 Cary Correct. Okay. And the local paramedic showed up and they tried to let you stabilize you at that point. And then Josh gets there and finds out the bleeding hasn't stopped. So what what were you going through when this when you initially had the break? This had to be extremely painful, very difficult to deal with. 00;07;27;14 - 00;07;46;07 Jay Yeah, it was. I had my skydiving friends. They were all there to help me. So I just had one person holding each hand, which made a big difference, you know, just keep your head in the right space to get through that. But I mean, I don't know how long it was 15 minutes before the local Amy's got there and. 00;07;46;07 - 00;07;48;06 Cary Then just before the ambulance got there. 00;07;48;06 - 00;07;54;24 Jay Probably, you know, I'm not really sure. It's all a little bit fuzzy, but probably maybe 10 minutes. I don't know, they it might not have been that long. 00;07;55;01 - 00;07;58;10 Cary And then for life they usually get there. Matt You guys probably got there. 00;07;58;10 - 00;08;12;10 Matt What I think it was about another 10 minutes after the ambulance we actually got called and launched to the flight before ground EMS got there. Okay. Dispatch called us just based on the description of a skydiving accident and launched us to head that direction just in case. 00;08;12;10 - 00;08;17;27 Cary So. So so they they knew that this was not going to be a walk in the park on this particular deal. 00;08;17;27 - 00;08;24;13 Matt It's just like a head on car accident or a rollover car accident, just the mechanism of injury. There's a good chance that somebody is not going to be doing very well. 00;08;24;23 - 00;08;32;08 Cary So, Josh, what did you think when you first rolled up on this? Are you guys get you know, you land the helicopter, you're looking at the scene. It must look pretty grim when you first rolled up. 00;08;32;10 - 00;08;41;29 Josh Well, he was doing very good, actually, when we got into the back of the ambulance as far as like him talking to us and he was alert oriented. So that's always a very positive thing is when they're able to talk to us. 00;08;42;00 - 00;08;58;12 Cary All right. Well, can we come back to a break? We're continue the story now. We'll talk about what happened after he got into the helicopter and was taken to a level one trauma center at Research Medical Center. You're listening to America's Health Care Advocate Broadcasting here on the HAI Radio Network. Stay tuned. We've got more. 00;08;59;23 - 00;09;12;05 Music One day I'll be down at my right. 00;09;12;23 - 00;09;51;01 Cary Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocates broadcasting coast to coast across the fruited plain here on the HIA radio network. You can find out more about us by going to the website. Health Radio Dot USA. Health Radio, Dot US. I'm your host, Cary Hall, my producer, Mr. Darren Wilhite in studio with me, Matt Daugherty from LifeFlight Eagle Jay Fabing a skydiver and patient who was transported by LifeFlight Eagle after a pretty significant accident when he was doing one of his parachute runs and Josh Lighting who was the flight nurse on that particular run, that particular ambulance run that they did when they brought Jay in to research medical center, level one trauma center. 00;09;51;08 - 00;10;08;00 Cary You know, we made a little joke. Did you know earlier in the earlier segment that if you if you are, you know, somebody at the skydiving parachuting, you probably ought to get a LifeFlight Eagle membership card. Well, I would strongly suggest that everybody might want to take a look at that, because it makes a lot of sense. I've had one for I think 16 years now. 00;10;08;09 - 00;10;34;10 Cary The website is LifeFlight Eagle Dot org. LifeFlight Eagle dot org. The phone number 888601 4913 888601 4913 You don't normally get a letter in the mail the day something like this happens. So we always tell people is it's better be prepared. And you don't want to be facing the cost of an air ambulance if it's not covered by your insurance or even if it is covered, you've got deductible coinsurance and all these other issues. 00;10;34;10 - 00;10;40;15 Cary If you have a membership, it's covered 100%. You don't have any responsibility for anything. Matt What's the cost per year now? 00;10;40;19 - 00;10;41;21 Matt $59 a year? 00;10;42;05 - 00;10;43;20 Cary It still hasn't changed. 00;10;43;20 - 00;10;46;06 Matt It has not changed and no no plans to change it. 00;10;46;06 - 00;11;12;00 Cary And that's not for each individual. That's for the whole family. Okay. So if you've got a LifeFlight Eagle membership, that $59 code covers everything. Once again, the website is LifeFlight Eagle dot org. All right. So, Jay, you're in you're now in the helicopter. What do you remember about, you know, from the time that Josh got there with his crew and they started stabilizing, you know, when they put you in that helicopter, there's a particular point in the narrative here that I read. 00;11;12;05 - 00;11;14;13 Cary I'll come back to that in a second. But what do you remember? 00;11;14;16 - 00;11;23;27 Jay It's kind of fuzzy. I'm pretty sure they put me in the ambulance first, right. And then they drove me to the helicopter. Yeah, to the helicopter, which was maybe a couple hundred feet away. 00;11;23;28 - 00;11;24;10 Cary Okay. 00;11;24;23 - 00;11;27;10 Jay And by that time, I think I had had some pain meds. 00;11;27;10 - 00;11;31;12 Cary So as you mentioned in here, thank God you got the fentanyl finally. 00;11;31;12 - 00;11;32;00 Jay Hey, right. 00;11;32;29 - 00;11;36;16 Cary Right. I can't even imagine the level of pain. 00;11;36;23 - 00;11;45;10 Jay No, you can't say it was. No, I can't do this. Horrific. Yeah, not. I've had kidney stones four times and those are painful, but nothing like it? No. 00;11;45;18 - 00;11;47;02 Cary Nothing compared to what this was like. 00;11;47;02 - 00;11;47;25 Jay Nothing like it. 00;11;47;28 - 00;12;04;01 Cary All right. So, Joshua, get him in the helicopter. What are you doing now to stabilize him? You talked about he was bleeding. Did you put him in a splint? How did you stabilize that leg? It had pushed through the skin. This had to be pretty gruesome. How did you treat that as you're flying him now to a research medical center? 00;12;04;02 - 00;12;27;22 Josh Fortunately, the ground crew had done a great job of getting everything ready. They had had his leg. We had to use blankets and pillows basically to stabilize it. You know, our commercial style for that type of injury, we're not indicated so we had it secured the best we could, just so that when we go to the movement from the cot, ambulance, cot to our cot, it was less painful and it's not moving the leg around. 00;12;27;22 - 00;12;44;26 Josh So we would just want to make sure that it's as stable as it can be. There's obviously some deformities of the bone sticking out, like you said, a lot of bleeding. So we did put a tourniquet on it and we try to do all that before we get on the aircraft. It's kind of hard to reach the, you know, the front where his leg would be. 00;12;46;01 - 00;13;00;14 Josh So we had that all ready before we even got onto the helicopter during flight. We gave him some pain medicine. I believe we gave some fluids, keep his blood pressure stable to kind of help counter some of the bleeding. But he did great. He was, you know, smiling the whole time, all things considered. 00;13;01;03 - 00;13;03;00 Cary If he was smiling, that's pretty remarkable. 00;13;03;00 - 00;13;04;27 Josh I think it was the pain meds that he was smiling about that. 00;13;05;01 - 00;13;07;18 Cary I think probably had something to do with it. If I had to guess. Yeah. 00;13;07;18 - 00;13;14;10 Josh But yeah, he was definitely, you know, joking with us and talking and you know, it was a very pleasant interaction for the whole flight. 00;13;14;10 - 00;13;26;27 Cary So, you know, he's in the helicopter now and I know you're talking to research, telling him what's happening. How does all that work and what are you relaying to the doctors at research that they're getting ready to receive him as a patient with this traumatic injury? 00;13;27;15 - 00;13;54;16 Josh Yeah. So we give them a phone call or over the radio that we're on our way. We'll give them a brief patient rundown of what's going on, the kind of injuries that we had, what kind of interventions we've had to do in Flight Current Vital Signs. And so they're prepared when we get there. And we always try to warn the patients when we've arrived that there's going to be a big team of basically the trauma team and everybody that's involved in the trauma team in the hospital, they're very good about when we get there. 00;13;54;25 - 00;14;18;04 Josh They are very direct with their questions. Sometimes the patients get a little overwhelmed because their experience in this life threatening trauma. And so now they're getting bombarded with questions. So they do a great job of, you know, getting down to the point, assessing the injuries immediately. They look at what we've done and they look to see if there's anything else that needs to do. 00;14;18;04 - 00;14;20;29 Josh And I believe they took him pretty much right to surgery as soon as we got there. 00;14;21;00 - 00;14;28;23 Cary So that's how I was going to ask you, Jay, when you got there, do you remember immediately into surgery or very shortly after you arrived in the surgery center at that research? 00;14;29;09 - 00;14;37;14 Jay Well, they there wheeled me into trauma. And like Josh said, it seemed like 100 people. But taking I'm. 00;14;37;14 - 00;14;38;13 Cary Sure, all we did. 00;14;38;20 - 00;14;55;26 Jay And it was just a flurry of activity. But they put me under and then they didn't do surgery right away. They relocated my ankle and and cleaned. And they had they had to clean it right away. I think that's what their main concern was when I first came in, because there was grass and mud and stuff still, you know, down the side of my leg. 00;14;55;26 - 00;15;04;12 Jay So that's seemed like they were mainly concerned about. So they gave me ketamine and then did all that procedure. And then later that evening, I actually had the surgery. 00;15;04;12 - 00;15;08;25 Cary So you didn't get surgery to later in the evening? Correct. Okay. How long did the surgery last? 00;15;08;25 - 00;15;09;25 Jay I'm not really sure. 00;15;10;05 - 00;15;17;11 Cary Maybe. Well, maybe quick Yeah. They reset the leg and what what did they do? They put pins in your leg. How are you doing now? How did that all work out? 00;15;17;20 - 00;15;41;27 Jay Well, I have a plate and eight screws in my fibula and that's it on the right side where the bone came through. I had an open wound there for a long time, a couple of months. So that was kind of tough to deal with and that was the most dangerous part where the infection could come in. But I went to a wound healing center in Olathe and I would go there twice a week and then at the end once a week, and they did a great job. 00;15;41;27 - 00;15;43;26 Jay And finally, that hole closed up and healed. 00;15;43;29 - 00;15;55;01 Cary Yeah. You you walked up the stairs. You walked in the studio. Amazing. Yeah. You didn't look like anything at all. How long did it take for you to get back to the state you're in today? Basically, I. 00;15;55;01 - 00;16;02;00 Jay Was walking in three months, so I think it's been about three weeks ago I was walking without a cane, I should say. 00;16;02;00 - 00;16;02;12 Cary Okay. 00;16;02;18 - 00;16;12;19 Jay You know, immediately I was walking with crutches and then I drop one in the crutches and I was just with one crutch and a boot. And I took the boot off and then I went to a cane. And so for the last three weeks I've been walking without a it. 00;16;13;08 - 00;16;22;26 Cary Yeah, pretty amazing story, Matt. We've done a number of these. So we come back to break. We'll talk a little more about it before we go out. Anything you want to say to the folks? 00;16;22;27 - 00;16;39;17 Matt Well, I think this is just a testament to the to the collaboration and coordination in the EMS services, the ground. The ambulance folks did a great job of coming out and getting that getting you stabilized. While we were on our way, the 911 dispatchers had already called us and got us heading that way before they were ever before. 00;16;39;17 - 00;17;00;04 Matt The ground crews were already there. And then that coordination of our team talking with the hospital so that as soon as we were skids down on the helipad at the hospital, that trauma team is out there already knowing exactly what needs to be done and all that kind of stuff. Ready to take care of you is a speed and coordination that takes a lot of practice and a lot of work, and it's really a testament to all of everyone who was involved. 00;17;00;04 - 00;17;16;16 Cary Yeah, and it's a testament to fact that he walked in today and you never know you had an injury. That has a lot to do with the fact that what Josh and his crew did and how quickly they got him to research and the great work they did at research, as we've had many people on here that have gone through that trauma center research, and that's made a big difference for a lot of folks. 00;17;17;02 - 00;17;59;26 Cary Job they do once again on the website if you want to get a membership for $59 a year for the whole family. LifeFlight eagle dot org, LifeFlight Eagle dot org. The phone number 888 601 4913, 888 601 4913. We'll be right back after the break. You're listening to America's health care advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network. Coast to coast across the U.S.A. 00;17;59;26 - 00;18;18;01 Cary You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast across the U.S. here on the HIA Radio Network. You can find out more about us by going to the website. Health Radio dot U.S. Health Radio dot U.S. Also, all the shows are posted on all those podcast platforms that I talked about in the opening of the show. 00;18;18;09 - 00;18;46;02 Cary So if you want to tell somebody about our show or go back up or you missed one go up on the podcast platforms, we're up there every week, every show is posted up there and they're titled, so you know what they are. My producer, the always perfect Mr. Darin Wilhite, I'm your host, Cory Hall, in studio with me, Matt Daugherty from LifeFlight Eagle, Jay Fabing a patient and skydiver who was flown by LifeFlight Eagle after a pretty significant accident when he was parachuting and Josh Lighting who is a flight nurse for LifeFlight Eagle. 00;18;46;02 - 00;19;07;12 Cary If you want information on membership, it's $59 a year. That's not per person. That's for the whole family. Okay. I've had one of these LifeFlight Eagle memberships for the last six years. Thank God I've never had to use it, but I've got it at $59 for the whole family life. Flight Eagle Dot org is the website. The phone number is 888 601 4913. 00;19;07;19 - 00;19;31;02 Cary Once again, the website you can sign up right there on the website. LifeFlight Eagle dot org is the website too. It's up there. So there's a lot of movement mad in the air ambulance business all of a sudden, you know, we've seen some changes happening out there, especially with the LifeFlight Eagles, a not for profit. You know, one of the things that we say about LifeFlight Eagle is you're here for the patients, not here for profit. 00;19;32;14 - 00;19;43;03 Cary That's not the case with a lot of the big national air ambulance operators. They're nationally traded on, you know, on the Wall Street exchange, etc.. But what's happening right now in this big transition. 00;19;43;03 - 00;20;09;22 Matt There have been a lot of changes in the industry. A lot of them have been sparked by some legislation that's come through. But you're right, most of the air ambulance industry are private for profit companies. And there's nothing I certainly don't have anything against profitability. You know, I'm a capitalist at heart, but it does become a little bit challenging when you're talking about emergency services and when patients don't have a choice who who's coming to pick them up and some things like that. 00;20;10;19 - 00;20;26;01 Matt So there's a little bit of a they do a great job of taking care of patients, but there's a little bit of a difference in why they why they do what they do. And with some legislation that's happening at the federal level, it is making it more difficult for those big companies to turn profits. 00;20;26;09 - 00;20;27;21 Cary So you talk about the no surprises. 00;20;27;21 - 00;20;56;13 Matt And the No Surprises Act. So the what the No Surprises Act does is it requires that air ambulance companies and insurance companies get together through a process of arbitration to figure out how much should that should be paid for that air ambulance. And what that means is that in the past, whatever insurance paid was great, and then those companies would come after the patients for on its balance, billing and what the No Surprises Act does is it prohibits the balance billing. 00;20;56;13 - 00;21;19;02 Matt It forces the patient and the insurer. I'm sorry, excuse me. It forces the air ambulance company and the insurance company to come together and to agree on an amount or to go through arbitration to define the amount, taking the patient out of the middle. And so as a result of not being able to receive that balance billing money, it makes a big difference in the profitability of those companies. 00;21;19;02 - 00;21;39;09 Matt And so we're seeing a little bit of rightsizing in the industry as far as bases closing across the country. Recently, one company closed 18 bases, including one in Saint Joseph, Missouri. And so there has been a lot of concern. We've had a lot of people call from the community wanting to know what's going to happen. Are we closing any of those kinds of things? 00;21;39;09 - 00;21;59;24 Matt And and my response to that is always we've been here since 1978, our nonprofit organization, where we're here to stay. We're not going anywhere. This is our community and we'll be here to serve the community. So because of that different structure and that we're not trying to return double digit profits to private equity companies or things like that, we're in a much better position. 00;22;00;11 - 00;22;12;13 Matt We still have to still charge. It's it's still more expensive than what I would like for it to be. But when you when your focus is on doing the right things for the patients and not driving profitability, it means that you're much more sustainable as an organization. 00;22;12;17 - 00;22;31;24 Cary And that has always been the mission. I mean, you know, you know, from the days it was Chris was here, you know, when we first started doing these shows and talking about this and, you know, Roxanna and you and back in the day when Steve Sandborn was here and the focus has always been on the community. We'll talk a little bit about that here in a minute or so. 00;22;31;24 - 00;22;51;19 Cary But that's that's a big difference from the way that LifeFlight Eagle has always operated versus how the for profits operate. And as you said, look, there's nothing wrong with making a profit, but we're talking about two different models here. This model is specifically set up to serve the community and has served it exceptionally well since 1979. 00;22;51;27 - 00;22;53;09 Matt 1978, 78. 00;22;53;09 - 00;22;53;20 Cary Okay. 00;22;53;24 - 00;23;13;07 Matt And LifeFlight Eagle has always been very, very deliberate in terms of our decision making processes and things like that, because again, one of our biggest values and biggest commitments is that commitment to the community and that we're not going to open a base somewhere and then later on have to close it because that isn't the right place for a helicopter to be. 00;23;13;08 - 00;23;36;04 Matt There's not enough flight volume to sustain operations at that type of a place. So we're very, very deliberate in what we do. So we've been asked, you know, will you put a helicopter up in Saint Joseph to replace that one? And our response is, we have helicopters that are in range of Saint Joseph. And so we're helping those communities up there from our bases in Chillicothe and in Odessa to go over and serve those patients from that area. 00;23;36;04 - 00;23;59;27 Cary Yeah, and you'll talk a lot about that because, you know, I've been to those openings when those bases were initially opened and you had the grand openings, you know, in Odessa, you know, the involvement with the community, you know, who came in. And in some cases, land was donated and funds were raised in the community. It was put in place to serve the community, which is a totally different model than what we're talking about. 00;23;59;27 - 00;24;01;00 Cary On the for profit side. 00;24;01;00 - 00;24;22;26 Matt Yes, we've been very blessed to have a lot of community support. Our bases being built by landowners in the community who were affected by us in some way and wanted us to have a base in their community and donated the land for us to build a base or cities, recognizing the benefit that we have to their community and working with us to partner and build a base in the community. 00;24;23;20 - 00;24;37;22 Matt We've been very, very blessed with with the support. We see it really as a community partnership rather than as a business opportunity where we want to take advantage of the situation is very, very collaborative with the local community. 00;24;37;22 - 00;24;53;03 Cary Yeah, I remember going up to the Chillicothe grand opening and I remember getting up there and I got up there about an hour before the event actually started, and there had to be at least 200, 250 cars in the parking lot. And by the time we got inside and actually got the thing going, the place was packed. 00;24;53;03 - 00;24;57;03 Matt We had over 600 people at the opening. So it was it was a major it was amazing. 00;24;57;03 - 00;25;23;16 Cary I was like I was standing with Kristen and Roxanna. Yeah. That's going I'm looking around going, this is remarkable. But it it talks about the value of what LifeFlight Eagle brings to these rural communities and why that connection, as with Jay, is so important at 23 minutes for Josh to get him from the accident site to research medical center and be able to stabilize him and do what needs to be done versus bouncing. 00;25;23;16 - 00;25;29;27 Cary Ran an ambulance for an hour and 20 minutes to get there, depending on, you know, if there's traffic or other issues to deal with. Yes. 00;25;30;05 - 00;25;51;04 Matt I do a lot of presentations out in the community and it's very rare that I don't. One of the first questions is, have you ever been flown? And more often than not, I see a hand raised. But almost every in almost every case, someone knows someone who's been affected or had had to be flown, whether that be with a car accident or a heart attack or a stroke or some sort of other critical illness. 00;25;51;24 - 00;26;10;19 Matt The air, ambulances and what LifeFlight Eagle does is so important to the community and improving outcomes, improving survival and improving outcomes. And everybody recognizes and knows someone who's been touched by our organization. And so that community support and goodwill is tremendous for us. 00;26;11;03 - 00;26;22;21 Cary Yeah. So let's switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about this because I think you mentioned off air that Josh's wife is out doing a community training today. One of the things that you guys do very, very effectively not it's not his wife. 00;26;23;05 - 00;26;26;01 Matt His partner on the aircraft. I play for him. 00;26;26;01 - 00;26;29;24 Cary He just got married. I didn't even know it. Okay. So how do you like that? 00;26;29;24 - 00;26;31;14 Matt You're going to start causing problems at home? Yeah, yeah. 00;26;32;16 - 00;26;45;07 Cary Yeah. So one of the things that you guys do that is critically portant is, is training of rural fire departments, rural first responders, EMS, etc., giving them tools that they typically don't have. So talk a little bit about that. 00;26;45;28 - 00;27;07;00 Matt Sure. One of our one of our core missions, aside from transporting patients, which has always been our primary mission, but is to serve the community by providing training and education for local fire departments, EMTs, ambulance companies, hospitals and things like that. So we do a lot of we do over 100 training classes a year, several thousand hours of instruction for these departments. 00;27;07;00 - 00;27;29;11 Matt And in some cases, that is to help them keep and maintain their licenses, because it's really easy for training budgets to get cut. It's expensive to offer those classes. And so we do them for either free or very low cost to offer those classes. And it really helps those those agencies in their personnel keep their licenses, as well as teaching new techniques refreshing on techniques. 00;27;29;19 - 00;27;50;02 Matt And we do a lot of classes when an ambulance company gets new equipment and we help them put into place some training programs to help them learn how to use that equipment. And that is really for the purpose of whether we ever end up transporting a patient that they have or not. It helps put them in a better position to serve the patients in their communities so that they can drive better outcomes. 00;27;50;11 - 00;28;08;16 Cary And also, just like in Jay's case, you know, the coordination between that local ambulance service and Josh's flight crew to get the helicopter there and then get him to research was a big piece of why that worked and worked so well. So we come back from the break. We're going to continue discussion with the folks at LifeFlight Eagle here about. 00;28;08;16 - 00;28;33;11 Cary We're going to talk a little bit more with Josh about what does it take to become a flight nurse on an on an air ambulance. This will be very interesting conversation. Stay tuned. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting here on the HIA radio network coast to coast accoss the USA. The website if you want membership lifeflighteagle dot org LifeFlight eagle dot org the phone number 888 601 4913. 00;28;33;11 - 00;28;49;07 Cary That's 888 601 4913. $59 here covers the whole family. Stay tuned. We've got more. We'll be right back after the break. 00;28;49;07 - 00;29;05;17 Cary Welcome back. You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocates Show broadcasting coast to coast across the U.S. here on the HIA radio network. Remember that all these shows are on podcast platforms. Google, Spotify, Spreaker, tune in iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Stitcher, SoundCloud and YouTube. 00;29;05;23 - 00;29;23;02 Cary Post it up there each and every week. So if you miss one, you want to tell somebody about one. You can go up on those podcast platforms and listen to them. My producer, Mr. Darin Wilhite, I'm your host Cary Hall in studio with me, Matt Daugherty from LifeFlight Eagle, Jay Fabong, who is a patient and skydiver flown by LifeFlight Eagle after a pretty significant accident. 00;29;23;08 - 00;29;41;18 Cary And Josh Lighting who was the flight nurse who happened to be on that flight, stabilized him and got him to Research Medical Center, a level one trauma center, the website, if you are looking for membership LifeFlight Eagle dot org. $59 a year that is for the whole family. That's not just for one person. That's $59 a year for the whole family. 00;29;41;18 - 00;29;58;18 Cary LifeFlight, Eagle dot org the phone number 1 888 601 4913, 1 888 601 4913. So Josh, first of all, you were an ICU nurse and did some E.R. work as well. What made you decide you want to go jump on a helicopter and the flight nurse? This is a little different deal. 00;29;59;06 - 00;30;19;12 Josh Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a bit of thrill on our end to just as the skydiver would want to do, you know, jumping on a helicopter and, you know, fly into, you know, land anywhere, really. We shut down highways. Land on highways will land in farmer's fields, will land at an airport. We do a lot of hospital hospital transports, but all of that just sounded like a lot of fun. 00;30;19;25 - 00;30;36;03 Josh The high level of care that's required, I think that there's a drive that all of our crew are, all our flight crew. We just we strive to, you know, be high level work in high level situations and be the best that we do. So I think that's. 00;30;37;06 - 00;30;51;03 Cary One of the qualifications. You just can't walk. You get out of nursing school, walk onto a life video and say, hey, I want to be in I want to be a nurse on an air ambulance. There's there's a process talk about the training because I know I know the answer to this, but I want you to tell the audience what it takes to get there. 00;30;51;11 - 00;31;08;20 Josh Yeah. So we have to have at least five years of high volume, high level critical care or emergency room. It can be mixed. And that's even the our paramedics, same thing. They have to be on a high level ground ambulance before they come onto the aircraft. So we bring a lot of years of experience between the two of us. 00;31;09;20 - 00;31;26;03 Josh And so we have a lot of trauma certifications, a lot of advanced life support certifications, and we have to maintain those throughout the year. So there's just a lot of training that we keep up with just on a on a regular. But we had to have all of that prior to even stepping foot on the helicopter. 00;31;26;03 - 00;31;37;05 Cary Yeah. So, you know, Matt, he just described that as he thought it would be a lot of fun. That's a unique definition to find out. I don't I don't know the what they do. I would consider to be fun. Okay. 00;31;37;15 - 00;31;56;21 Matt But you know what? They're so good at what they do. And you talk about a staff of people who are type-A personalities and extremely competitive. And I say extremely competitive because it's almost like the challenge to them is not today, you're not going to die today, we're going to take care of you and you're in the best hands because you're in my hands. 00;31;56;21 - 00;32;13;22 Matt And that's kind of how our crews approach it. And they they do a fantastic job of working on the patients and taking care of them, working together, working in partnership with the ground, the folks on the ground or the folks at the referring hospital to get them stabilized and then taking care of them the air and then getting them to the hospital. 00;32;13;22 - 00;32;21;16 Matt And that handoff, it's really a challenge for them. And I'm so proud to work with and support this team of people. It's amazing. 00;32;21;23 - 00;32;37;08 Cary Yeah, you know, it's funny. We've done some of these shows we've done over the years. I remember one in particular where a young man took a motorcycle over a hill and I'm thinking it was in excess of 90 miles an hour, head on into a pickup truck, wound up losing a leg, but would have died. And I forget how many pints of blood it was. 00;32;37;09 - 00;32;39;18 Cary I thought it was amazing how many I don't. 00;32;39;18 - 00;32;40;01 Matt Remember, but it. 00;32;40;01 - 00;32;42;22 Cary Was somewhere between 18 and 20 some pints of blood. 00;32;42;25 - 00;32;43;23 Matt It was even more than that. 00;32;43;23 - 00;33;01;27 Cary Yeah, but by the time it was all over with, I mean, just to get him, keep him alive and get him to again, it was Research Medical Center. In fact, we actually had the doctor on that saved his life in the in the E.R. that did the surgery. So when you talk about competitive and you're not going to die today on our helicopter, that's pretty serious. 00;33;02;01 - 00;33;15;08 Cary These folks are consummate professionals at what they do in a responsible for Sanjay case. Here he is today, walking completely normal because of what they were able to do to stabilize him and get him to research that video. 00;33;15;08 - 00;33;34;16 Matt They do a fantastic job. And, you know, Josh talked a little bit about the training, but it's not only the training and the learning never stops. They're not done once they've been hired, you know, they have to go through ground school for an extended period of time before they're able to get on the helicopter. And then even during the year ongoing, doesn't matter whether you've been a flight nurse for a year, you've been a flight nurse for 25 years. 00;33;34;29 - 00;33;49;00 Matt They're constantly going through training, refreshing skills, learning new skills, learning new equipment, things like that, because they never know what they're going to see. Are they going to be landing on the side of a highway for a baby that was in a car accident? Or are they going to be taking care of somebody who's just had a heart attack? 00;33;49;17 - 00;34;02;02 Matt Is it going to be somebody in a field who fell out of a deer stand and got hurt? It could be anything that they could be going after. And so they have to be prepared on a moment's notice with total confidence that they have the ability to take care of that condition. 00;34;02;13 - 00;34;21;15 Cary And that that training shows in the results of what they're able to accomplish when they make these flights and move these patients one point to another. So let's change gears here a little bit. We talked about the training and some of the stuff that goes on. So you're in the process of building training and simulation rooms in Odessa, raising, what, about $20,000? 00;34;21;15 - 00;34;23;21 Cary How far along in the process is that and where's that at? 00;34;23;22 - 00;34;39;05 Matt We're just getting started. So you've been out to our Odessa base and we had some folks that are at our open house recently who got to see that. But we have a loft area. The hangar is a big metal building and then the crew quarters, the bedrooms and kitchen and all that kind of stuff is on a lower level. 00;34;39;05 - 00;35;01;27 Matt But then we have a loft above that that's just been kind of an unfinished area. They did some work out stuff up there, but we're in the process of and we're going to finish that area out so that they can still have their workout room. But we're going finish a couple of rooms specifically for use in our crews training and for simulations, an area where we can kind of build a mock mock ER or a mock ambulance to practice. 00;35;02;04 - 00;35;16;08 Matt Again, practice makes perfect to practice those situations. And during during training, during annual simulations, during annual invasive, all that kind of stuff. So most of those rooms will be a really good asset for our internal training stuff. 00;35;16;13 - 00;35;21;19 Cary And we've got one of the thing before we wrap it up here, and that is you have giving Tuesday coming up. Talk a little bit about that. 00;35;21;22 - 00;35;44;15 Matt We do have giving Tuesday. That's something I would ask and encourage everybody. Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. So we have you know, you have Black Friday and then you have Cyber Monday and everybody's spun up and buying their Christmas gifts and all that kind of stuff. Giving Tuesday is a day that's become a big deal nationally is where people can kind of reflect and take the opportunity to identify a nonprofit organization and to make make donations to help support that nonprofit organization. 00;35;44;15 - 00;36;03;07 Matt On Giving Tuesday. So I would just invite everybody to consider making a donation to LifeFlight Eagle. You can do that on LifeFlight Eagle dot org or by calling the phone number 888 601 4913 and that can be a one time donation. You can do monthly donations or even even have the ability to donate stock right now. So there's a lot of neat things that you can do to help support our mission as a nonprofit organization. 00;36;03;07 - 00;36;18;07 Cary Well, once again, thanks. Good to have you back up here. Thank you for coming in, Jay. Thank you, Josh, for taking time out of your day to be here. We really appreciate. It was a great story. You know, they are committed to this community. We're lucky to have them. You know, if we were relying on one of the for profit services and they pulled out of the community, where would you be? 00;36;18;07 - 00;36;40;23 Cary So LifeFlight Eagles here to stay. They are for patients, not for profit. If you want a membership for $59 a year for the whole family lifeflighteagle.ord, lifeflighteagle.org. The phone number 888 601 4913. And now I leave you with this thought from Albert Einstein, the one who follows the crowd. They usually get no further than the crowd, the one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. 00;36;40;26 - 00;36;52;10 Cary Remember, friends. It's a funny thing about life. You refuse to accept anything but the very best. You most often get it. Thank you for listening to America's health care advocate. Good bye, America.