STAR Flight crews hold open house in honor of National EMS Week

Attendees of the open house were able to take a look inside a STAR Flight helicopter, meet the flight crews and learn hands-only CPR.

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas - In honor of National EMS Week, STAR Flight crews hosted an open house for the public on Thursday, May 25.

"It's the most-unique program that I've ever been part of," said Lynn Burttschell, chief medical supervisor. "They can go out and help move a neonatal patient from one part of the state to another, and on that same day, they can wind up at Lake Travis helping someone that's been in a boat collision."

Attendees of the open house were able to take a look inside a STAR Flight helicopter, meet the flight crews and learn hands-only CPR.

ATCEMS medivacs patient after fall from cliff

The patient was safely evacuated via helicopter after falling from a 20-foot cliff while rock climbing. Video courtesy of ATCEMS.

Flight paramedic Patrick Brennan responded to four calls with his STAR Flight crew before touching down at Thursday’s event.

"Typically, if you're working on an ambulance, people for the most part kind of know what to expect," said Brennan. "With this, we could be fighting a fire one second. We can be going to a car wreck. The next second, we can be picking up somebody from a rural hospital that needs to come downtown."

RELATED COVERAGE

An upcoming holiday weekend, and the unofficial start of summer, can bring about scenarios that STAR Flight is uniquely fitted to handle, whether that be evading traffic or responding to water rescues.

"We'll definitely see a huge uptick in our trauma requests," said Brennan. "But at the same time, we're still going to be called for all of our medical stuff and kind of our typical calls that we get every day as well."

According to Travis County, STAR Flight is the only 24/7 aerial emergency medical service in Texas that performs "highly specialized emergency response services." STAR Flight operates three helicopters.