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Aeromedical crews work to bring wounded home

  • Published
  • 433rd Airlift Wing
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Maj. Lisa Willis knows how important it is to care for Americans wounded in the war on terror.

She's a flight nurse with the 775th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Scott AFB, Ill., and the medical crew director for an aeromedical evacuation crew of active-duty and reserve volunteers. Her team cares for patients on their last flight before they get home to Texas or other stateside locations.

As a reservist, Major Willis serves with Air Force Reserve Command's 433rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Lackland AFB. As a civilian, she is an intensive care unit nurse at a hospital near Abilene, Texas. And at home, she is the mother of two sons in the Army; one of them is deployed to northern Iraq.

Major Willis said she can't dwell on the fact that many of the war wounded she cares for are the same ages as her sons. She admits that sometimes when she looks at the young patients on her flight it does affect her, but it also lets her know she made the right choice to volunteer to fly them home.

"I always know it is the right thing to do," she said. "There are safer, cleaner ways to be a nurse." But none are more satisfying to her.

Her patients are among the 98 percent of those wounded who get to an Air Force Theater Hospital in the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility and survive. The survival rates are higher in the current conflict than in any other time in history partly because skilled medical professionals are able to move patients within critical hours to the closest facility to meet their medical needs.

One member of Major Willis' crew is new to medical air transportation. Staff Sgt. Michael Counts decided to change his specialty from medical technician to aeromedical technician.

"I was working in a hospital in labor and delivery," said the active-duty sergeant with the 375th AES from Scott AFB. "I wanted something with a little more action and more high speed. The reward of bringing these guys back home - that's job satisfaction." (Air Force Reserve Command News Service from a 433rd Airlift Wing news release)