TIMING IS EVERYTHING: Medical helicopters can-be rural America's fastest way to life-saving care

摘要

The last thing Don Rasa wanted to hear that March morning in 2005 was the sound of helicopter blades whirring overhead. The EMTs who were working on him had called for a medical helicopter because they wanted to get him to a trauma center in Kansas City as soon as possible. ButRasa didn't think there was any hurry; his foot didn't hurt that much, even though he had just been run over by a skid loader. "I told them I didn't need a helicopter. I wanted the ambulance to take me to Warrensburg, which was about 30 miles away," remembers the Higginsville, Mo., farmer. But the EMTs' expertise and experience prevailed, and soon Rasa was in the air. "About two or three minutes before we landed [at the end of a 15-minute, 145 mph flight], the pain set in," Rasa says. "