{"id":32100,"date":"2023-08-25T18:45:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T00:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/classic-air-medical-hospital-lands-on-mancos-school-grounds-for-a-lesson\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:52:30","slug":"classic-air-medical-hospital-lands-on-mancos-school-grounds-for-a-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/classic-air-medical-hospital-lands-on-mancos-school-grounds-for-a-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Air Medical Hospital lands on Mancos school grounds for a lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2603a8d4-b05f-5080-8926-6aa8d1519edb&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"Mancos High School students who are on a health care pathway attend a Classic Air Medical crew\u2019s presentation at the Mancos School District\u2019s practice field on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Mancos High School students who are on a health care pathway attend a Classic Air Medical crew\u2019s presentation at the Mancos School District\u2019s practice field on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s Classic Air Medical Helicopter made an appearance on the Mancos School District\u2019s practice field Thursday,  as students from various classrooms surrounded the field to watch it descend.<\/p>\n<p>As it landed, the copter created a wind vortex, blowing a gale toward everyone and everything that was close enough to it as its diesel exhaust briefly filled the immediate area.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after, most students went back to class, but about 30 high school students on a health care pathway high surrounded the Classic Air Bell 407 GX crew to view the copter, equipment and listen to the crew members talk about what life is like up (or down) in the air. Some of the students were also from a drone class.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the students said they wanted to do something related to this profession. One said she thinks she wants to be in the medical field and another said he wants to be a pilot, but mostly he wants to work on big planes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Lj8IExMqdQA\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The crew also brought swag for the interested students \u2013 red T-shirts, calendars, lip balm, stickers and pens.<\/p>\n<p>Jacklynn Romine, the flight paramedic, said the Classic Air copter is stationed at Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s landing pad, unless it\u2019s in use.<\/p>\n<p>The crew said they\u2019re constantly busy responding to calls and teaching the public first aid and CPR in a region that includes Utah, Arizona, and La Plata and Montezuma counties.<\/p>\n<p>The students also wanted to know about the training they receive.<\/p>\n<p>The crew\u2019s pilot, Kyle Davis, captivated the young audience with what his job entails.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast night we had to fly to Montezuma, Utah, for a gunshot wound in the abdomen,\u201d he said. \u201cShe had to be flown to Farmington.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=60f3f20f-63de-5169-8ba6-4a8cb082a955&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s Classic Air Medical helicopter lands on the Mancos schools\u2019 practice football field to talk to students about the medical flight crew occupation on Aug. 24. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s Classic Air Medical helicopter lands on the Mancos schools\u2019 practice football field to talk to students about the medical flight crew occupation on Aug. 24. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a0b7d205-47b3-5090-958a-c4c29e34fca0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"Medical pilot Kyle Davis, left, and flight medic Seth Wayman to health care pathway students at the Mancos schools campus about their jobs. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Medical pilot Kyle Davis, left, and flight medic Seth Wayman to health care pathway students at the Mancos schools campus about their jobs. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>He also explained to the students that since this area is so remote, there\u2019s not enough light to see in the night sky. To counter that they wear night vision goggles. He said the idea of wearing them is cool but after many hours of wearing them, the added 8 pounds around their heads gets heavy.<\/p>\n<p>Davis, who\u2019s flown for about 20 years, two of them for Southwest Memorial Hospital, said he doesn\u2019t have any medical training.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis might sound cruel, but my job is to not care about the patient. If I start to care about what\u2019s wrong with them, I would put too much pressure on myself,\u201d he said. \u201cMy only job is to get these guys from point A to point B.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He then asked if anyone wanted to get on the tiny stretcher that\u2019s located behind the pilot seat to show how uncomfortable it is inside. A male student, who once was a patient in a medical helicopter, volunteered to get in.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=e486f7f8-d4df-5333-b5b5-a7fb9a22f2cf&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Seth Wayman, flight medic, assists a high school student on the Classic Air Bell 407 GX on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Seth Wayman, flight medic, assists a high school student on the Classic Air Bell 407 GX on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=fc00fe5e-0a54-5165-97cb-b3570eb846cd&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s Classic Air Bell 407 GX on Mancos School District\u2019s practice football field on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s Classic Air Bell 407 GX on Mancos School District\u2019s practice football field on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>\u201cThing is, you don\u2019t want to be in my helicopter,\u201d Davis said. \u201cTrust me, it\u2019s not fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before working as an EMS helicopter pilot, Davis gave tours in Las Vegas for seven years after he closed his flight school, Suncrest Aviation, in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was flying famous people \u2013 from Kermit the Frog to Tommy Lee Jones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Thomas and Seth Wayman were the other crew members who spoke with the students.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas, the flight nurse, informed everyone that the shift routine was four days on and four days off. He said in total that\u2019s only eight days of actively working a month.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=f7d42804-8a3d-514f-bcc6-db043c708aab&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Eric Thomas, flight nurse, and Seth Wayman, flight medic, talk to Mancos high school students about their occupations for Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s medical flight crew on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Eric Thomas, flight nurse, and Seth Wayman, flight medic, talk to Mancos high school students about their occupations for Southwest Memorial Hospital\u2019s medical flight crew on Aug. 24, 2023. Colette Czarnecki\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s nerve-wracking at times, but the hours are a plus,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes a certain breed (to do this job). We\u2019re there with limited resources, and we have to fix problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Seth Wayman, the flight medic, said that each crew member brings specific skills. The flight medic has more experience being in the back of an ambulance and knows more about ventilation management and intubations, while the flight nurse has more experience working in clinical settings and administering medications.<\/p>\n<p>Within a half-hour the students ran out of questions and the educators asked a few more including, \u201cHow do they know which hospital to fly to?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The crew said that it\u2019s based on the hospital\u2019s specialty and the weather.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after, the presentation ended and the crew packed up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medical flight crew meets with health care students to talk about their occupation <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81676,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32100\/revisions\/81676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32100"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}