News

Ebola flight: `no different than a fire truck`

Ernie Suggs

08/08/2014

Aug. 08--Phoenix Air, the international air ambulance service that delivered two Ebola patients to Atlanta from Liberia, had one goal:

"To bring two Americans home and hopefully save their lives," said Randall Davis, a pilot on one of the two flights.

Company officials, in a press conference on Thursday at their Cartersville hangar, said they had an opt-out clause on the flight: once in Monrovia, if the flights' medical team found that the patients' conditions had deteriorated to the point of being dangerous, they could turn around and head home with an empty plane. That apparently was never a consideration. They also had the option of making an unscheduled landing if the patients' conditions worsened in the air. Again, not really a consideration.

"We did not have any other place we were gonna take them accept Emory University Hospital," said Phoenix Air's medical director, Dr. Michael Flueckiger. "We made the decision, if conditions deteriorated, we were capable of high-level medical care on the flight."

Phoenix Air Vice President Dent M. Thompson said the flight crew and medical team had trained for this sort of flight, and the company had developed a special containment pod that would fit inside a Gulfstream jet.

Everyone lives in a neighborhood with a fire station near their home," Thompson said. "This is no different than a fire truck. We are ready to go at the drop of a hat."

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