News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Livingston Fire and EMS traveled to Kentucky this week for a helicopter evacuation training course.
Livingston Fire Chief Rocky Dial said the department takes the course every two years to maintain awareness of the air evacuation procedures. He said firefighters learned how to create a safe landing zone for helicopters, free of powerlines, trees, and road signs.
“They have to gain our trust when they come in and land that what we’re telling them is accurate,” Dial said. “So that’s why we take the class. So that we get to know the people and they can explain to us exactly what they’re looking for when they’re landing, such as electrical lines, because they’re extremely hard to see during the night.”
Dial said EMS workers learned protocols for safely loading people onto the aircraft. He said air evacuation is an extremely useful tool in emergencies and has become a daily occurrence.
“It may be their family on there,” Dial said. “And I’m sure that they’d want the best training for the people that’s landing that helicopter to be available to help protect their family and get them somewhere as quickly as possible.”
He said the severity of a person’s injuries dictates whether they will be transferred to a hospital by helicopter or ambulance. He said the helicopters take patients to hospitals across the state of Tennessee and even into Kentucky, depending on what kind of medical attention the person needs.
“This is a class that most of the helicopter services that do medical fly-ins, they want us to take every year, every other year, something like that,” Dial said. “Most fire departments that land helicopters do take these classes pretty regularly.”
The class was led by Air Evac Lifeteam 14 in Albany, Kentucky.
