Paramedics Drive into Storm to Save Patient

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.afscme.org/blog/paramedic-drives-into-storm-to-save-patient


BY MICHAEL BOOKMAN | JULY 01, 2014



Adam Shaffer and Amy Shepard are EMS professionals in Independence, Missouri, and new AFSCME members.


When most people hear of baseball-sized hail and tornado warnings, they avoid leaving the house at all costs, let alone drive 200 miles into the worst of the storm.

If you're Adam Shaffer – an EMS professional in Independence, Missouri, who just became an AFSCME member – you might not think twice about it. With a transplant patient depending on you, there’s a job to be done. Helicopter transport was out of the question because of the storm. Shaffer and his partner, Amy Shepard, also a new AFSCME member, were asked if they could drive a recent transplant patient with internal bleeding back to her doctors.

The road from Independence to Omaha, Nebraska, usually takes three hours. But that doesn't account for baseball-sized hail, torrential rain, 70-plus mph winds and tornado warnings.

"The skies turned from blue to grey to black,” Shaffer said. “With the rain, wind and hail, you couldn't see more than one road stripe in front of the rig."

FULL story at link.