Flying in masks and gloves, as well as distancing from cabin crew, is the new normal for emergency medical helicopter pilots. In a virtual town hall organized by the Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) on April 28, a trio of air ambulance executives explained how their organizations are handling pilot safety in the wake of the Covid-19 emergency.
The executives said all of their organizations were focused on a series of best practices regarding the use of personal protection equipment (PPE). They have also taken steps to separate flight and air medical crews, avoid patient contact, and stay out of hospitals, while also modifying aircraft when possible with cockpit/cabin dividers, as well as using cabin air filters and aircraft decontamination.
Ben Clayton, chief safety officer for the Life Flight Network, said his company was focusing on tracking and ensuring adequate supplies of PPE, proper pilot training for the equipment should be used and limiting patient relative riders. Proper PPE training can prevent pilot complaints such as eyeglass fogging while wearing N95 masks, he said. Life Flight also tracks and traces flights in real-time to determine if crews have been exposed to the virus.
Casey LeBrun of Metro Aviation admitted that, initially, Metro intentionally did not fly known Covid-19 patients while the company assessed the risk, and only did so once it instituted proper procedures, training, and PPE. Today, Metro uses four different guidelines to assign risks and responses to transports that dictate, among other things, the level of PPE worn by crew and patients, settings for cabin air conditioning and ventilation, and aircraft decontamination. “One of the things we put in place is for the pilots to have no contact with the patients at all,” he said.
After missions, pilots handle cockpit decontamination while medical staff attends to the cabin. “We’re also advising pilots not to go into hospitals,” he said. LeBrun also said that all pilots must be gloved when they approach their helicopters, but can remove them inside the aircraft. Crews also cover medical equipment that will not be used on a flight with plastic trash bags.
Boston MedFlight tracks pilot and medical crew exposure to Covid-19 patients, said Rick Ruff, its director of operations. The operator also worked with Airbus and the FAA to develop a method to use Hepa cabin air filtration on its fleet of H145 twins. It has banned pilots from not just from entering medical facilities, but also from assisting medical crewmembers with tasks such as carrying bags.
The company also instituted strict restrictions on facial hair to ensure proper seals on masks, which Ruff admitted initially caused “a little bit of angst” but eventually “everybody cooperated.” Crews also are required to wear surgical masks when on station and during flights, and full protective masks anytime a medical crewmember sits up front in the cockpit.
None of the operators said they were experiencing pilot shortages due to Covid-19 quarantining or aircraft shortages stemming from the time required to decontaminate aircraft—about 45 minutes at the end of each patient transport. “We’ve been focusing on trying to keep [pilot] stress levels down,” said Life Flight’s Clayton.