STARS Air Ambulance plays a crucial role in Steinbach and the surrounding areas.
Among the dedicated team members is Steinbach’s own Ray Rempel, a veteran paramedic with 30 years of experience, 13 of which have been with STARS.
Rempel speaks passionately about the organization’s growth and the privilege of serving the community he calls home.
“The people of the southeastern Manitoba region are just fantastic. They're super generous people. I know so many of them, friends, relatives, coworkers, just people that we connect with,” says Rempel.
He shares that when he started working with STARS, most people were unfamiliar with the organization.
“I had to explain it. Now when I say I work for STARS, it's immediately followed by, ‘Oh, you flew my friend, my relative, my uncle, my mom.’”
Over the years, STARS has become an essential service, providing rapid medical transport for patients in critical situations. Rempel highlights the importance of quick access to care.
“It just shows how small our whole Manitoba community is. It brings it even more close to home with just being from Steinbach and obviously, Steinbach region is one of our highest visited flights,” he explains. “So, the power of the STARS program and the care that it can bring and getting the person to where they need to be in a quick manner is really important.”
Living in the region himself, Rempel understands the challenges of rural Manitoba and finding emergency care in the midst of a medical crisis.
“Being that I still live out there and I understand the geography and some of the challenges around the area, it's really cool to be able to just give back to the community in that way.”
STARS flight nurse Darren Entner provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the team operates in the air.
“In the aircraft itself, we have equipment for patients, everything from brand new babies up to 102-year-olds, and various sizes and shapes because we are all different. So, we have equipment for all of that.”
STARS is equipped with life-saving technology, including patient monitors to track vital signs, oxygen saturation levels, and blood pressure, as well as a ventilator and various other advanced medical devices.
“The ventilator is a machine that can breathe for a patient if they're unable to. We also carry things like an ultrasound. So we're all trained as air medical crew in ultrasound so we can look inside the body and see if there's blood or air where it shouldn’t be, and we can fix those problems. So basically, we are a flying ICU in the back of this aircraft.”
Entner also discusses a game-changing device that assists with chest compressions during cardiac arrests.
“Some of our legs of our missions, we can be in the back of the aircraft with the patient for an hour or longer and if we have to do compressions that entire time, obviously a very fatiguing, high utilization of your physical skills. And by having that LUCAS machine, or the machine that does the compressions for us, basically, is another set of hands for us. And then we can do the medications and changing the monitoring or the ventilator as opposed to having to do the compressions and then somebody else doing all those other things cause we are limited. There's two of us in the back of the aircraft.”
He says that each flight carries the same essential tools to ensure readiness for any situation.
“The equipment that is in the aircraft is the same for every mission we go on because sometimes we will be going out for a mission and then we're diverted to something else. Calls are triaged based on necessity. So, every mission we have the same amount of equipment. We do have some uploads like blood. We carry blood and clotting factors actually on every single mission, even if we need it or not. So that always comes on, those are an upload. Medications that we take along, we take along our pouch of medications that can basically treat everything that we're going to get to. Configuration of the aircraft is exactly the same for every mission we go on.”
Join Country 107, MIX 96, and AM1250 on April 1 and 2 for the Critical Care on The Air Radiothon for STARS, presented by BHP.
Learn about the importance of STARS, hear from Very Important Patients, and donate!
With files from Corny Rempel and Kenton Dyck
@steinbach_online The Critical Care On The Air STARS Radiothon, presented by BHP is on starting tomorrow! Check it out!! #STARS #Radiothon ♬ original sound SteinbachOnline