During the critical care transfer of a patient, Blake demonstrated exemplary actions that truly went above and beyond what was required for the betterment of his patient. Blake was assigned a critically ill patient who was on numerous IV drips, a ventilator, and an intra-aortic balloon pump. This patient required additional life-saving interventions at a higher level of care facility and thus needed to be transferred. My air medical helicopter was dispatched for the transport, and the typical interfacility transfer usually entails the sending nurse giving a report and paperwork and then walking away, leaving us, the flight crew, to do all necessary interventions with little to no additional assistance. Blake was the exception to this and from the moment we arrived to the unit to the time we were lifting off the helipad to head to the next facility, he was there assisting my partner and I the whole time.

After Blake gave the bedside report, he aided us with providing additional input to the complex care of this patient, aiding with IV drip and ventilator management, providing extra medications in case we ran out during the transport, being hands-on for the moving of the patient, and even coming out to the helipad in frigid weather with no coat on to help load the patient and the cumbersome IABP into the helicopter. Those were just a small portion of the highlights of his assistance in this case. Best yet, he did all this without being asked and maintained a positive, calming attitude throughout the whole ordeal while tensions were high due to the severity of this patient’s condition. I’ve been doing flight nursing for a number of years now and have never had such a positive experience with a nurse at a sending facility. It was like having an additional member to the flight team, and for all his actions and behavior, I want to recognize him with this nomination.