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as told by Kim Hable
 e got the call from Dispatch around 4:30 p.m. on a Saturday in October. A small 3-year-old child was missing in a rural area. He had been missing about an hour. It would be dark soon making search efforts nearly impossible and temperatures were dropping.
 I am a flight nurse for MedLink AIR, Gundersen Lutheran’s helicopter ambulance service. We receive calls a couple of times a month to help with an air search. We’re asked to assist with river searches for missing fisherman, and searches for missing hunters and farmers, too. But when a child is involved, we feel a particular sense of urgency.
Within minutes, our pilot, Marc Wuensch, had us in the air on our way to where the boy was seen last. While en route, Scott Larson, the flight paramedic, talked to search crews on the ground to get a description of the boy and what he was wearing.
Once the helicopter reached the search area, Marc began a standard search pattern. In particular, we were asked to fly over cornfields where it was difficult for teams on the ground to search. About 10 minutes into our search, we spotted the small boy on the edge of a wooded area about a mile from his home.
MedLink AIR typically helps with only the search, leaving rescue efforts to the specially trained and equipped teams on the ground. In this case, the boy was scared and started to run. So the decision was made: Marc landed the MedLink AIR helicopter in a cleared field nearby, and we recovered the child. We flew him home and reunited the boy with his very happy and relieved family.
It was a very positive experience for us all. We deal with a lot of tragedy in our work so we especially enjoy the happy endings. Assisting law enforcement and EMS agencies with search efforts is a very positive thing we do for our community and we’re glad to be a part of it. |