October 20, 2004
North Flight rapid response
North Flight ambulance service logs more than 100,000 transports
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
From cooking eggs for a diabetic to stabilizing a heart patient for transport; from bringing a baby into the world to responding to auto accidents, paramedics with Munson Medical Center's North Flight Ground service do it all.
In the 20 years since the organization began as the Grand Traverse Ambulance Service, paramedics have racked up more than 100,000 transports. They have touched the lives of countless residents in five counties: Grand Traverse, Benzie, Wexford, Crawford and Alpena.
The 138 paramedics, EMTs and specialists in those five counties, including 50 based in Grand Traverse County, work full and part-time positions to help provide coverage 24/7 to residents.
The North Flight paramedics12 - or 24-hour shifts -vary from no calls to a dozen, with each day unpredictable. Last Wednesday, the crew responded to 26 calls. The calls often come in waves, creating noticeable peaks and troughs of service over a shift or week.
"Some days we're standing around with cars [ambulances] idle and some days we need ten cars," said Mike Trailer, a paramedic for more than 30 years, 20 of them for North Flight.
A growing percentage of the North Flight paramedics' duties are non-emergency transfers; that is, taking patients from one health care to another. In their last fiscal year ending in June 2004, 1,831 out of 5,255 calls were non-emergency transports. Those calls happen primarily on schedule and during business hours.
It was the year's other 3,434 calls that keep life unpredictable and challenging, both professionally and emotionally.
Calls include the intercepts for a person having chest pains or a stroke in outlying areas. During an intercept, a North Flight paramedic meets an incoming ambulance en route to Munson and jumps aboard. Then there are multiple fatality car accidents, the assault and battery calls on weekend nights, various injuries and traumas.
As with most public safety careers, esprit de corps is the glue that holds members together through the decades.
This camaraderie keeps the paramedics going through the tragedies, accidents, crimes and senseless deaths they encounter. Dark humor helps them cope, as well as the understanding that comes from shared experiences.
"We pretty much lean on each other," said Wayne Merveau, who has been with the squad for 20 years and a paramedic for 25. "We do a lot of different things, we just talk about things amongst ourselves."
"The emotional support is built-in, internal, added Rick Sharp, a paramedic with 20 years service with North Flight over a 30-year career. "Generally, if an employee sees a problem, we can do a critical incident debriefing or Munson has support available."
Another outlet is that many of the North Flight paramedics have second jobs, facilitated by their concentrated work hours.
For example, Trailer works two 24-hour shifts a week. Last week, he worked a Sunday shift and then was off again until the next Saturday. During this off time, he helps with his brother's heating and cooling business. Other second jobs include a snow-plowing business, teaching EMS, a bail bond agent, working at Munson as advanced Emergency Room technicians and so on.
Merveau serves as the assistant Fire Chief in Acme and is also an emergency driving instructor in the area. Teaching ambulance drivers to navigate around the all-too-often-dangerous driver - who either deliberately ignores the sirens or tries to outrun them - is a challenge.
"People don't get out of the way, they look right at you and keep going," he said. "Some just stop in the middle of the road."
Members of the North Flight team also pull special duty, such as working the National Cherry Festival, soccer games, football games or the rodeo. The visit of President George W. Bush in August was one of the biggest challenges the service faced. During the hours they worked at the Grand Traverse County Civic Center, more than 100 people dropped from the heat and lack of water.
"They did not want to go get water because they would lose their spot and some people didn't want to use the portable bathrooms," Trailer said.