{"id":719683,"date":"2026-06-06T20:32:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/719683\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T20:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:32:23","slug":"the-patients-basically-on-my-lap-inside-the-world-of-a-flight-nurse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/719683\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The patient\u2019s basically on my lap\u2019: Inside the world of a flight nurse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

For STARS flight nurse Stuart Grant (right), the helicopter is both a transport vehicle and a mobile intensive care unit, where treatment begins long before patients reach hospital.Supplied<\/p>\n

When a patient arrives in a typical emergency room, the clinical team has space to assess, treat and adjust. They can examine the patient from different angles, adjust lighting, reach for equipment and call on nearby colleagues for help. In a helicopter, flight nurse Stuart Grant works from a seat beside the stretcher, trying to provide that same level of care in a cabin with barely enough room to move. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore often than not, the patient\u2019s basically on my lap,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

On one recent call, Mr. Grant and his team arrived to help a patient whose limb had become caught in an industrial machine in a confined space. It took less than 30 minutes to fly the 60 kilometres to the site of the accident in southern Alberta. As firefighters worked to free him, Mr. Grant climbed into the cramped area to assess the patient, manage his pain and provide sedation. <\/p>\n

As the situation stretched on, he began preparing for the possibility of a field amputation, a procedure he says flight crews train for but rarely perform. Firefighters ultimately freed the patient and Mr. Grant turned to controlling the bleeding and stabilizing him for transport. During the flight, the team administered a blood transfusion inside the helicopter cabin.<\/p>\n

The job requires experience, calm under pressure and the ability to keep working when the usual supports of a hospital are stripped away. For Mr. Grant, that challenge was part of the draw. <\/p>\n

He had been watching the work, in a sense, for years before he joined STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service), the non-profit air ambulance organization that operates across Western Canada. Living beneath the flight path to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, he remembers seeing helicopters carrying patients toward the hospital. He knew he wanted to work in health care and had considered medical school, but he discovered he was most drawn to roles that kept him close to patients. <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw doctors doing amazing work, but they\u2019re in quickly seeing somebody, then out quickly and on to the next person,\u201d he says. \u201cWhereas the nurses and paramedics were there the whole time, taking care of somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

STARS offered a way to do that work at its most focused, treating one critically ill patient before they reach the hospital. It would take roughly a decade before Mr. Grant became eligible for one of the organization\u2019s limited positions. Flight crews must have at least five years of experience in a high-volume intensive care unit, emergency department or ground ambulance, he says. <\/p>\n

He started with EMT training, went through nursing school, built critical-care experience and, while working as a registered nurse, also studied to become a paramedic. He joined STARS in December 2019.<\/p>\n

A typical 12-hour shift at his Calgary base begins with the practical work of making sure the staff and aircraft are ready. Crews begin with a handoff from the previous team, a safety briefing, equipment checks and a medication review. Then comes the waiting. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a fire hall where you\u2019re sitting around, waiting for the tones to go off, and then you have to get out the door immediately,\u201d Mr. Grant says. <\/p>\n

Some missions begin as scene calls, with limited information. Mr. Grant has flown to highway collisions in northern British Columbia and Alberta, trails in the Alberta foothills accessible only by horseback or ATV and remote Manitoba communities that are cut off from road access for much of the year. Other calls involve transferring a patient from a smaller hospital to one with more specialized resources. The helicopter can get patients to the emergency room quickly, transferring them from places that are difficult to reach or far from a major hospital. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the big misconception is that it all comes down to flying fast,\u201d Mr. Grant says. It\u2019s true that the helicopter shortens the time it takes to reach the hospital, but the care starts in the air. \u201cI can do 90 per cent of what the emergency department would do in the first 20 minutes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Heather McLellan, a retired Mount Royal University associate professor who specializes in advanced critical-care nursing, says flight nurses have to learn to work in an extremely challenging environment. Beyond the patient\u2019s condition, transport teams have to account for noise, vibration and the physiological effects of altitude. <\/p>\n

\u201cFlight nurses must think ahead, adapt quickly and make independent decisions because, once airborne, additional help or equipment is not readily available,\u201d Ms. McLellan says. <\/p>\n

Mr. Grant describes transport medicine as its own specialty. Altitude can worsen certain conditions, while noise and vibration complicate assessment. Temperature is harder to control. The aircraft becomes part of the medical challenge, not just the method of transport.<\/p>\n

The work is demanding, but Mr. Grant says it also gives him something he did not always find in hospital settings, where he was often trying to treat dozens of patients at once. In the helicopter his attention narrows to one person.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re on a mission, the emotion tends not to be there,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in it, the work is the work.\u201d <\/p>\n

The harder moments often come when the clinical work gives way to the emotional aftermath of a call. In hospital, difficult conversations typically happen in a quiet room, with social workers nearby. On scene, Mr. Grant says those conversations may happen at the side of a road or sitting on the hood of a truck. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to tell someone often that their loved one has died or help them understand that even though we\u2019ve done absolutely everything we can, the outcome doesn\u2019t look good,\u201d he says. \u201cThose are the kind of things that stick with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The job has changed how he thinks about risk, especially around water and sports-related injuries, common reasons his team is dispatched. <\/p>\n

\u201cI probably brief my kids about safety a little more than the average person,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The job can leave him carrying the weight of bad outcomes, but it also offers opportunities to see patients on the other side of the crisis. Through STARS\u2019 Very Important Patient program, former patients can return to a base to meet the crews who cared for them. For Mr. Grant, who often hands patients over at the hospital and never learns what happened next, those visits can be deeply meaningful. <\/p>\n

\u201cPatients I thought weren\u2019t going to survive are walking in,\u201d Mr. Grant says. \u201cThat\u2019s a cup-filling experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one case in particular he reflects on when the work feels heavy. He transported a woman who had gone into labour unexpectedly, far from the nearest hospital. About a week later, an e-mail came through with photos of the baby, at home, doing well and lying beside the STARS-branded teddy bear the crew had given the mother. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got that in my back pocket if I ever feel down,\u201d Mr. Grant says. \u201cYou see that, and it\u2019s like: \u2018Okay, I\u2019m good. I can do 30 years of terrible calls now, and I know that I made a difference\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: For STARS flight nurse Stuart Grant (right), the helicopter is both a transport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1401,49,48,84,392,2922,260331],"class_list":["post-719683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-adveditorial","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-noastack","tag-ordid4047386366"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}