By Josh Hood, Adventures in Science
A moment after we were introduced, Scott, a clean-cut flight paramedic, was already heading back to his base to pick up more medical equipment. He had just stepped off an airplane whose engines were still winding down, and he was getting ready for another air ambulance mission. What was strange was that I had to be at the airport at 4:00 a.m. to meet him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "We just heard from base. I've got another run to make."
Many of us have some idea of the world of paramedics, emergency teams and disaster crews from the movies, or from a friend in the fire department. But who has heard of air ambulance? That's why I was standing near a runway in the small hours of the morning, waiting for an appointment that was, needless to say, instantly canceled. Normally I might think that was rude, but since Scott was going back to work to try to save someone's life, I let it slide.
Later that day, after another four-hour medical flight, I met him back at the airport, just in time for breakfast.
"What do you call what you do?" I asked him. Running on almost superhuman energy, he spoke as if he'd had a full night's sleep. "People call it a lot of things: air ambulance, air ambulance charter, medflight, medevac, air evac, air medical transportation, medical air transport…" I had to stop him; he might have gone on forever.
Besides, I wanted to know what I really came to ask: why stay up all night flying on small airplanes with patients?
"I really don't know," he laughed. "I guess anyone in this line of work must be a little crazy. I like not knowing where I'm going. You could be flying a patient from one hospital to another only 200 miles away, or you could be going to Europe to pick up a patient thousands of miles from home. It doesn't matter where the patient is. The patient is the focus."
That's when I realized this is a regular thing; most people just never encounter it. It's like seeing a specialist doctor: air medical crews are the flight specialists of the medical world, the people who bring patients home.
Over modest eggs and a half-toasted bagel, he began telling me stories of the patients he had helped and the places air ambulance work had taken him around the world.
Need to arrange a medical flight? Air Ambulance Central has arranged bedside-to-bedside air ambulance transfers since 1983. Flights are operated by FAA-certified Part 135 carriers, with care provided by licensed, independent medical crews like the one in this story. Call 1-800-827-0745.
Last reviewed October 2026 by the Air Ambulance Central flight coordination team.