By JOHN BURNETT
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Ever wonder what happens on those medevac flights that take patients from the Big Island to Oahu?
Wonder no more. The Weather Channel is premiering a new reality series, “Hawaii Air Rescue,” on Wednesday, Sept. 12. Check local listings for times.
The six-episode docu-series follows the crews of Hawaii Life Flight, an air ambulance service. The premiere episode, “Trouble in Paradise,” features Johnny Goetsch, a Kona paramedic and his flight nurse partner, Anne Broderson, and Hilo flight nurse Lori Cannon, as they accompany two trauma patients airlifted from Hilo to The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu.
Goetsch, a Sacramento, Calif., native, has been a paramedic for two decades and has worked for Hawaii Life Flight for a little more than a year after spending some time in lower Puna. A married father of two college students, he’s shown surfing at Lyman’s Beach in Kona at the beginning of the episode.
“Basically, I’m doing the career that I’ve always wanted to do in paradise,” he said. “I love Hawaii. I can’t believe I’ve been living here three-and-a-half years. I’ve become an island boy through-and-through. My job is not my life at all and my life here is just awesome to me.”
Broderson, who’s from Kansas City, came to Hawaii four years ago to work as a travel nurse in the emergency room at Hilo Medical Center. She met her Kona born-and-bred husband, Adam, a week later, and shortly thereafter landed the job at Hawaii Life Flight. They’re expecting their first child on Dec. 1. She says she doesn’t yet know the baby’s gender.
“We’re waiting to find out,” Broderson said. “We figured the first one, we’ll leave a little suspense.”
Broderson said she enjoys taking care of a “variety of patients.”
“I come from an ER background, so I was kind of used to that,” she said. “You’ll have a cardiac patient, and then the next one is trauma. It really keeps us on our toes, as far as being ready for anything and being prepared for everything.”
One thing they had to prepare themselves for was the camera.
“It was a little difficult or strange at first,” Goetsch said. “I never really had to talk into a camera. It was kind of bizarre. But the cameraperson that we had — her name is Tracy (Wares) — is great. She talked me and told me to relax and look into her eyes and not into the camera. … Within a week, I was a ham.”
Added Broderson: “I was a little more conscientious about making sure that I was looking all pretty before a flight. Before, that was the least of my concerns.”
There are, of course, more pressing concerns. One flight was forced to turn back to Hilo due to a cockpit panel light indicating a malfunction. Another potential problem is turbulence.
“The turbulence really doesn’t bother the clinicians so much, but there are some patient concerns,” Goetsch said. “Every now and then, I worry about patients when they have an unstable neck fracture or something like that, where I don’t want them to be bumped or jostled around. … With cases like that, we’re talking to the pilot and getting up-to-the-minute weather information, just to be sure. I’ll have the pilot even take a different course to avoid the clouds, because that’s where the turbulence is.”
Broderson said she wanted to do the show “to show the rest of the nation and the world” the medical limitations in Hawaii, especially on the Neighbor Islands.
“We really need more specialists, more doctors in general and better facilities. It’s good job security for me, but it’s such a shame that residents of the outer islands have to have these delays in getting quality health care at facilities that have what is needed to really take care of them,” she said.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.