I begin this blog as a form of remembrance. I am not a writer, I was the mother of a flight nurse until September 29, 2005. The list on the left is comprised of wonderful people who are now lost to the medical air ambulance community and to their family and friends.
Erin Reed had been severely burned when a Molotov cocktail intended for another couple landed at her feet. She spent weeks in the hospital and her life was changed dramatically. Erin launched her EMS career as an "ambulance driver". That phrase hated by all EMS medics, but that's what she was. She got her paramedic certifications and worked in Santa Rosa, California. Erin overcame her fear of fire to become a firefighter/paramedic in Marin County California.
Erin and her husband moved to Boston where she was unable to find work as a firefighter. She began working for Boston MedFlight as a paramedic while putting herself through school, choosing nursing as a career. While in Boston Erin fell in love with FLIGHT. Upon graduating from school, she joined her husband in Tennessee and went to work in the emergency room of Holston Valley Hospital. I thought Erin had found her niche and would be there for a lifetime. She gathered friends as she did everywhere, and settled into "life" as she called it. One day I got a phone call telling me she was divorcing and leaving Tennessee. She eventually decided to start her new life in Seattle, Washington.
During the years Erin was on the East Coast, my husband and I had moved to Colorado. We kept in touch by phone and snail mail. When she went to Seattle she persuaded me to get a computer to "keep in touch". I had to go back to the phone as she was not good about returning my e-mails! I saw more of her after the move to Seattle. On one visit to my mom's we talked about her desire to work in flight. She was discouraged as she feared 40 was the age of no return, when the door would close on her dream, and the dreaded birthday was only a few years away. I still remember the phone call telling me she had finally got the job with Airlift. Erin was thrilled, overjoyed, thankful her dream was realized!
