Inside look: Life-saving flights in NoCo

Time really flies when you're strapped to a hospital cot, a bag dripping fluids into your arm while you watch from a thousand feet above as cars crawl along Interstate 25.

Medical helicopters like Northern Colorado's Air Link, stationed at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, aren't all that different from ground ambulances. You know, aside from deafening rotor whir, a few sudden wind gusts that jolt the chopper and a constant beeping audible even through a headset that crackles to life every few seconds with radio traffic.

Did I mention they're loud?

The flight crew from Air Link invited Coloradoan photographer Erin Hooley and myself for a first-person look at what it's like to be airlifted to the hospital — a world reporters are often blocked from due to patient privacy concerns. I was a mock heart attack patient for our scenario. With the help of Windsor Severance Fire Rescue and Poudre Valley Hospital EMS, we captured for ourselves what goes on from the first on-scene responders to the chopper ride over I-25 and the internal labs at Medical Center of the Rockies.

As a breaking news reporter with a brief medical background — I got EMT certified years ago — this project had me giddy. I'd never seen the Air Link chopper up close, nor had I ever flown in a helicopter.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a wee bit nervous. I suppose that's how most people feel.

Air Link has averaged approximately 300 patient transports annually since it started in March 2012. One-third of those calls are to emergent scenes such as for climbers who fall in the high country, critically injured motorists or people on the verge of a cardiac emergency in rural reaches of Northern Colorado. The rest are transfers across the state.

The average chopper transport with a patient is 58 miles — a distance covered in 25 minutes.

My own scenario highlighted how quickly things can get moving when when life is on the line.

The whir of sirens echoed across the Severance park where I hunched over a bench. A firefighter's rapid-fire yet conversational questions were relentless about the crushing pain I was experiencing that started radiating down my arm while I was out for a run. It was clear time was of the essence.

The pain is about a nine out of 10.

No, I don't have a cardiac history.

No, I don't have allergies.

I answered as a healthy runner — I ran the Blue Sky Trail Marathon the day before our scenario. I still looked pale and overall sickly, the photos afterward showed. I guess it made the scenario more real.

Within minutes, I had a slew of hands from firefighters and paramedics poking and prodding, sticking and measuring everything from my heart's strength on a monitor to an old-fashioned breath sounds check with the always-freezing stethoscope. The oxygen was calming and refreshing — for a minute.

Hearing medics call a "cardiac alert" to the hospital and request a helicopter transport was enough to spike my blood pressure, even though it was a mock scenario. The booming "thwap thwap thwap" of the chopper minutes later made the adrenaline rush apparent in the cardiac monitor printout. It's still pinned to my cubicle wall.

I wasn't expecting the nerves. Again, I guess it makes it more like what actual patients feel.

But as flight nurses Dave Steiner and Ryan Bushmaker climbed into the back of the ambulance and got me ready for the chopper ride, the professionalism showed. Like a well-oiled machine, Ryan got the rundown from paramedics while Dave tucked in close by the stretcher and, with a friendly voice like we'd known each other forever, checked on my pain level, taking notes on his glove for future reference.

It's a common practice in the field.

Within seconds, I was being whisked across a rocky field and hoisted into the tiny Air Link helicopter. These air ambulances are some of the lightest in the industry, which means they are more nimble and can access remote areas like Rocky Mountain National Park.

They nestled me in the passenger seat right by the pilot. I'm a small guy, but my arm span would have touched both sides of the cabin along with the team sitting just inches behind me.

The four Air Link pilots have flown in various places around the world, and the team of of seven registered nurses, three paramedics, a mechanic and a medical director make up the MCR-based staff. Since they can't plan their day, most work within the hospital until paged out.

Rising above the Weld County fields and zipping 20 miles to the hospital took about 10 minutes. Driving time is about 30 minutes on a good day.

Once airborne, the ride was smooth and I was a little more at ease. The imaginary pain medications must have kicked in as I could barely tell the difference as the helipad came into view and we touched down smoothly. From there, the morning was a blur. Hospital staff wheeled me through the emergency room doors, past the nurse's station, into an elevator, down a hall and into the catheter lab.

This is where the preparation from the flight crew, firefighters and paramedics paid off. It's also where any remaining clothes are stripped off, needles come out and doctors use high-tech scanners and cameras to locate the blood vessel blockages, inflate the area around it and decide how to proceed.

Though not part of the plan for me, cardiac doctors spend their careers training for instances like this. Dubbed the door-to-balloon time, responders are constantly racing against the clock from the moment patients begin experiencing a chest pain to the moment doctors can clear the blockage.

Cardiac emergencies account for 22 percent of the air transports in Northern Colorado. The standard door-to-balloon time is about 41 minutes — half that of the national standard. Technology has helped, of course, but so has the addition of Air Link crews. It's a group effort, from the equipment to the transport to the recovery.

I knew a lot of things would happen once responders approached me on that park bench. I knew I'd have a hard time remembering everyone's name. And even with my own background in the field, I underestimated how much professionalism and passion this team shows every single day, even in a mock event.

Oh, and helicopters are really loud.

Reporter Jason Pohl covers breaking news for the Coloradoan. Follow him on Twitter: @pohl_jason.