Oddly enough, and this is gonna sound so funny, I am a baseball field person, like I look for a baseball field every time we take off.
Oh look there's a baseball field.
Maybe it's the softball player in me, but I love to see them from up high.
That's Asia B. She's thirty years old, lives in Maryland, and technically speaking, she's a critical care transport nurse at a large pediatric hospital in Philadelphia. But Asia's version of critical care transport nursing is quite unique because she's what's referred to in her line of work as a flight nurse.
Yeah.
So, a flight nurse is someone who essentially goes and picks up patients in aircraft that can either be a helicopter, it could be a fixed wing, or any of those kind of vehicles that fly.
In honor of International Nurses Day, I spoke with Asia about her job as a flight nurse, why she fell in love with such a risky career, and how she balances the demands of such an intense job with motherhood and everything else she's got going on in life. And if you've never heard of flight nursing, you're not alone.
Because prior to taking this job. Neither had Asia, but as an experienced er nurse and a self described thrill seeker, Asia knew the moment she heard that you could take care of patients while soaring through the air that she'd found the job for her. There was only one little issue. She'd never been in a helicopter before. Tell me about that first flight you took. Were you nervous?
So we got a page and they send you an alert saying this is dispatch, this is the patient and.
They're like, yeah, you guys are going to go up for a flight today. And I was like what.
They're like, yeah, you're going to go up in the helicopter today.
And then, as she explained it, things started getting really She and her team take the elevator to the top floor of the hospital and then walk out to the helipad. It's cold and it's windy, and her adrenaline is pumping.
And then the nurse who had came with that crew is like, oh, is this your first flight.
I'm like, yup.
She was like oh okay, Like here's the you know, I'm gonna show you the parts of the helicopter. Stay in the front, don't walk towards the back.
It's kind of like when you're having a baby. They're telling you all.
These things and you're like, I can't focus, like and then I must have got too far away.
She was like, stay close, member. I was like, oh god, I forgot already.
Fortunately for Asia, the first flight was to bring her out to a patient that they were picking up for transport, so she could focus on the flight itself, get over those first flight jitters, which for her immediately faded the minute the helicopter took off.
I thought it was gonna be a lot more bumpy, but it was very smooth. It was. It was amazing. It was just amazing being like that high up.
As you can imagine. Being a nurse and a helicopter is a heck of a lot different from nursing in a hospital. For one thing, it's really tightened here.
So a helicopter is definitely a confined space.
It is so small, even though I'm only five feet, can't even like stand up inside of it, that's how small it is.
And unlike a hospital that has a well stocked supply room and all the machines and monitors and nurse could need the limited space of a helicopter means Asia and her team need to pack wisely and bring only the essentials.
Our resources are pretty much what you bring in your pocket. So we wear something called a flight suit and it has about like twelve bockets on it and you can stick things in it.
I have like flushes.
I am like my alcohol swaps because there's not a lot of moving, Like you can't go reaching in a bunch of bags and doing a bunch of moving around.
Not to mention, they're up there flying through the air. It's just her a partner and the pilot doesn't know how to do something. She can't page someone on another floor to come help. So this means that a flight nurse like Asia has to be on top of their game.
One of the things that I always tell new nurses in the moment, it'll come to you.
And that trust Asia has in her skills, that confidence in herself to rise to the moment stems from her training as an athlete.
I played softball in high school.
I used to get on the dirt and I used to be like, I hope a ball doesn't come to me right, because you don't want to make a mistake. You don't want an error. You're worried about these things. I'm like, I hope a ball doesn't come to me. And my softball coach, she said, if you're on this field and you hope the ball doesn't come to you, then we have an issue.
And it's kind of the same thing in nursing.
When you first start out and you're a new nurse, you're like, I hope I don't get a hard patient.
I hope I don't get an IVY today.
You know, it's one of those things where that that is a notice that you need to step your skills up, because when you go to work, you should be saying, no matter what comes in that door today, I know that I'm going to be able to handle.
It, especially as a flight nurse.
No matter what page we get that day, I know that when I get up in that helicopter, I'm going to be able to do this.
If you can hear a sense of conviction in Asia's voice when she talks about nursing, there's a reason for that because nursing has always been Asia's goal.
Yeah, this is one hundred percent plan A for me. I always wanted to be a nurse. I went to a high school that was called a vocational high school, so they let you study some type of vocation, and my vocation was practical nursing, which you got to graduate with your LPN.
From high school. So I did that program and I was like, yeah, this is it, and then.
From there I went straight to college and got my four year.
Degree right away and it the rest's history.
I one hundred percent once I started in it, just even that first day, I was like, this is what I want to do.
This is definitely my calling.
So no, this isn't one of those stories about a wayward soul trying out a bunch of different jobs before finding the one that suited them. This is the story of a woman who knew deep down exactly what she wanted to do in this life and then committed herself holy to turning that dream into a reality. So when Asia shows up to work, she's not hoping to pass the time playing on her phone. She's there because she has a job to do, her dream job.
We have this thing in nursing, which is kind of I think all nursing.
It's called a.
Superstition where you don't say it's quiet in here or on board, because when you say those things, things commit and I'm the one that's gonna walk in like, guys, it's so quiet in here, because I'm like, we're doing this, We're gonna turn this up in here today.
And people are like, Asia, why did you say that?
I'm like, because we're just sitting here bored, like we need things to do. And so I am one hundred percent the person.
Like I hope we get a flight today.
When we come back from the break. Asia's pager goes off.
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We're back with Asia B, who shows up at her dream job as a critical care transport nurse, not knowing exactly what that day is going to look like. One minute she might be working in the hospital and the next she's speeding down I ninety five in the back of an ambul or putting a stint in a patient while soaring over Washington, d C. And a medical helicopter. And for Asia, that uncertainty, that big question mark at the beginning of each day is one of the best
parts of the job. But it's a job not without risks. Do you have a son, right?
I do. He's a five year old and my son's name is Tate.
Does your son worry about you going up in the helicopter?
He's My son is five, so I don't know if he actually has grasped the idea that I am like that it's so dangerous in his mind. You know, when you're that young, Oh the beauty of innocence. You just don't understand. This is dangerous. Mommy's job is dangerous.
Medical flights often occur in poor conditions and challenging locations, and while the industry has taken measures to increase the safety of their work, risks still abound. In fact, just days before I interviewed Asia, a medical helicopter went down in Nevada, killing everyone aboard. And then when I was editing this piece, a few weeks later, another medical helicopter went down in Alabama. Asia is not ambivalent to the risk of her job. She knows that every time you
go up there is that chance. But she also knows that it's part of the job, a job that she feels destined to do.
I think that one of the things for nurses, most nurses, nurses who care, are they're just so like selfless, right because the reality is we're here to help people, and so in our mind that's always our like, that's always at the forefront, So we don't really you can't really think of anything else in those moments.
As a mom herself, Asia knows the stakes. She knows that oftentimes she's seeing families in their absolute worst moments, seeing mothers and fathers in the midst of a living nightmare.
The thing about and they're saying that kind of fascinates me, I think is that you are literally taking care.
Of someone at their most vulnerable time.
You have the power to kind of be the difference between a good experience how they deal with this like most stressful time in their life, or adding more stress and making it terrible for them, right, and especially I think being a pediatric nurse, this is your most prized possession, right and now you are literally as a mom, feeling so helpless in this situation and you have no idea what to do, and I hear I come, and I'm like,
I know more than you about your kid. Right, No one likes to hear that, But I think in those moments like empowering parents and being able to be there for them in their toughest time is probably like the best. If my patient leaves and doesn't feel like I've helped them or held their hand through this, what was the point?
Then there's just really no point.
So here's the thing. Well, this episode is about Asia, It's also about nurses everywhere. It's about those millions of men and women who put on their nurses scrupts each day and do their jobs, no matter how difficult or exhausting or downright dangerous it might be. At the height of the pandemic, entire cities came to a standstill as people banked pots and pans and screamed in praise of
nurses and doctors and other frontline workers. Maybe you were one of those people who, at seven o'clock every night shouted out your window or stomped up and down on your fire escape in praise of our frontline workers, in praise of our heroes. And as things returned to a sense of normalcy. I'm wondering if we can't find some way to continue thinking those people, people like Asia, who we turned to in our times of need. If you'd like to thank Asia, you can check her out on
our website Motheringdemama dot com. For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson.