Heart rushed to transplant op on scheduled flight

Growler!!!

From the real capital's newspaper:


In a race against time, the heart was brought from Tralee General Hospital to Farranfore Airport and onto the Aer Arann plane bound for Dublin.

The plane waited on the tarmac at Farranfore for almost an hour beyond the scheduled 7.30am departure time, and on landing at Dublin Airport, the heart was transported to the Mater Hospital with a Garda escort.

It is understood that the heart made it to the hospital in time for the transplant to be carried out.

Air transport of organs is usually carried out by the air corps or the coast guard, but very high crosswinds and turbulence meant those organising the transfer had to explore using the commercial flight route.

It is understood that Cork and Limerick had also been considered as possible take-off points for the air corps to collect the heart, but those locations were also affected by bad weather and turbulence.

The air corps typically completes more than 100 standard air ambulance transfers a year and a defence forces spokesman said: “The air corps duty officer received a query [on Sunday night] investigating the possibility of an air ambulance mission from a regional location.

“In line with standard procedures, air corps stand-by crews were consulted. However, the severe weather conditions, including turbulence and high crosswinds, made any mission impossible overnight.”

The Kerry-Dublin route is one of two public service obligation routes in Ireland, meaning they are partly subsidised. It is understood that those arrangements are up for review shortly.



Some good news from a "faceless airline"

CelticRambler

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

Quaderno

CelticRambler wrote: »

You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

Wow. It's hard to believe you mean that...

billie1b

CelticRambler wrote: »

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

A life saving organ and you'd be písséd for having to wait an extra hour even though someones life depends on it, jeez the mind boggles.
Reminds me of the time I had to bring a heart from a flight on stand in Dublin Airport to the security check point because the ASU officer said 'I know i'm allowed let the organ Ambulance up to the aircraft to collect it but I just don't have to and i'm not going to as its my decision', talk about a totally arrogant decision when someones life is depending on it, I couldn't believe it. These things are on a strict time frame, if they don't make it its useless then to the person who donated it and the person awaiting it, the difference of life or death for some. Some people are so selfish, imagine that was your mother or father and people were giving out they had to wait a whole hour extra to give someone a new chance of life!

basill

No doubt they had to wait for the person to DIE first before taking their heart out!

Reg'stoy

Medical team would have informed the family of the donor that they were sustaining life by artifical means and that there was no hope of recovery. The person might have been a voluntary organ donor or their family might have been approached. They would normally wait until the family are ready to switch off life support, and it is only when the family are ready that they start the process of harvesting the viable organs. I don't know if medically the organs deteriorate during life support and if speed is of the essence in harvesting them. I do know that once harvested they must be used within a set period of time.

A specialist surgical team is normally dropped off by the Air Corps who then wait to transfer the team and organs to where they're required.

I would imagine that in this case the team made the journey by road and requested the Air Corps to transfer them with the organs due to time constraints. An example of excellent lateral thinking in using the Aer Arann flight to make the journey when the Air Corps could not carry out the transfer.

As for celticrambler's comment, hopefully he did not fully understand the process but even then I found his comment distastefull.

The hour delay pales into absolute insignificance when viewed against the numerous lifetimes that have now been extended, by the very generous donation made by the donor and their family.

Masala

Reg'stoy: Well worded reply.

fr336

CelticRambler wrote: »

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

I'd get a bus to Dublin if it meant someone's life being saved...

kub

billie1b wrote: »

A life saving organ and you'd be písséd for having to wait an extra hour even though someones life depends on it, jeez the mind boggles.
Reminds me of the time I had to bring a heart from a flight on stand in Dublin Airport to the security check point because the ASU officer said 'I know i'm allowed let the organ Ambulance up to the aircraft to collect it but I just don't have to and i'm not going to as its my decision', talk about a totally arrogant decision when someones life is depending on it, I couldn't believe it. These things are on a strict time frame, if they don't make it its useless then to the person who donated it and the person awaiting it, the difference of life or death for some. Some people are so selfish, imagine that was your mother or father and people were giving out they had to wait a whole hour extra to give someone a new chance of life!

I really hope that guy got to do the job he always wanted because he must have hated being an ASU.

Roblestone

CelticRambler wrote: »

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

Let's hope you are never in a situation that you require a life saving organ. It's going to save somebody's life and you're worried about missing a connection!!!

I'm glad you are a minority in this case.

I think it's you who needs to have a heart!

Stinicker

I heard of a person here in Kerry who got the call for a heart transplant in Dublin around two years ago and was taken to Dublin by Garda squad car, the journey is supposed to have taken around 1hr and 50mins and according to local gossip they were doing nearly 120mph - 130mph on the Motorway to Dublin.

If I was on the flight I'd have gladly given up my seat so that the medical crew could travel if necessary. The Airline would always put you on the next flight and I'd like to think some kind person would do the same for me if I was ever in such a precarious position as to need an organ transplant.

CelticRambler

Wow. In all my years posting on the internet, I've never had a unanimous mis-interpretation of one of my posts. My point was not that I, as a passenger, wouldn't want to wait for a life-saving cargo, but that whoever was handling this in Tralee couldn't even get themselves organised in time for a 07.30 departure when they had (possibly) up to twelve hours to harvest the organs and make a 20km road journey.

I am very familiar with the management of these kinds of medical interventions, so if was a case of "sitting around waiting for the donor to die" then it would probably have been far better to have had a garda & paramedic motorcycle whip it up to Dublin. Unless, of course, there was no-one else on the Kerry flight ...

mickdw

CelticRambler wrote: »

Wow. In all my years posting on the internet, I've never had a unanimous mis-interpretation of one of my posts. My point was not that I, as a passenger, wouldn't want to wait for a life-saving cargo, but that whoever was handling this in Tralee couldn't even get themselves organised in time for a 07.30 departure when they had (possibly) up to twelve hours to harvest the organs and make a 20km road journey.

I am very familiar with the management of these kinds of medical interventions, so if was a case of "sitting around waiting for the donor to die" then it would probably have been far better to have had a garda & paramedic motorcycle whip it up to Dublin. Unless, of course, there was no-one else on the Kerry flight ...

But they obviously hadn't all this time you speak of. Sure they knew there was a possibility of a donor but I'm sure that organ couldn't have been on that plane one minute sooner.

Irish Steve

The limits some people will go to are only incredible, I have personal first hand experience of the stupidity and ignorance of some people in relation to organ transplant aircraft, and if it hadn't been so serious, it would be laughable.

Was working at Dublin Airport at the time, a small aircraft came in from the UK with a transplant organ, and had a minor technical problem. Duty manager asks me to "see if you can get yer man out of trouble".

I did. Totally safe, within the procedure agreed with the aircraft captain and their operations manager, so the aircraft got away, and was available if needed for another emergency flight once it had got back to base.

3 Days later, I'm up in front of the next level of manager, and after a LONG and fruitless fight, was out of a job that I was darn good at, as a result of a trumped up "health & Safety" violation that was not witnessed by anyone else, I was at the aircraft on my own.

Supposedly, I wasn't trained to do the job I did.

Those of you in the industry will probably recognise that as a CPL/IR holder with the type rating on the aircraft that was in trouble meant that I knew a LOT more about what I was doing than any UNION motivated nark that doesn't know one end of an aircraft from another.

My "crime"? Providing external power via jump leads to start a Seneca that has flattened the battery due to a radio issue. if you have a CPL/IR type rating on a Seneca, it's SOP to know how to safely get the aircraft going again in that type of scenario, it's very easy to end up with a battery that's not able to start those engines without external power, and the standard Seneca doesn't have an external power socket, it's jump leads through the front baggage locker.

In the same circumstances, an organ ferry flight aircraft grounded for something that stupid, I'd do it again, simply because someone's life might be depending on that aircraft.

Won't EVER be a member of a trade union though.

Whoever came up with the plan to get the organ from the west to Dublin should be congratulated, for thinking outside of the box, that's the sort of thinking that is so important to save lives when it counts, well done to all concerned.

Roblestone

Irish Steve wrote: »

The limits some people will go to are only incredible, I have personal first hand experience of the stupidity and ignorance of some people in relation to organ transplant aircraft, and if it hadn't been so serious, it would be laughable.

Was working at Dublin Airport at the time, a small aircraft came in from the UK with a transplant organ, and had a minor technical problem. Duty manager asks me to "see if you can get yer man out of trouble".

I did. Totally safe, within the procedure agreed with the aircraft captain and their operations manager, so the aircraft got away, and was available if needed for another emergency flight once it had got back to base.

3 Days later, I'm up in front of the next level of manager, and after a LONG and fruitless fight, was out of a job that I was darn good at, as a result of a trumped up "health & Safety" violation that was not witnessed by anyone else, I was at the aircraft on my own.

Supposedly, I wasn't trained to do the job I did.

Those of you in the industry will probably recognise that as a CPL/IR holder with the type rating on the aircraft that was in trouble meant that I knew a LOT more about what I was doing than any UNION motivated nark that doesn't know one end of an aircraft from another.

My "crime"? Providing external power via jump leads to start a Seneca that has flattened the battery due to a radio issue. if you have a CPL/IR type rating on a Seneca, it's SOP to know how to safely get the aircraft going again in that type of scenario, it's very easy to end up with a battery that's not able to start those engines without external power, and the standard Seneca doesn't have an external power socket, it's jump leads through the front baggage locker.

In the same circumstances, an organ ferry flight aircraft grounded for something that stupid, I'd do it again, simply because someone's life might be depending on that aircraft.

Won't EVER be a member of a trade union though.

Whoever came up with the plan to get the organ from the west to Dublin should be congratulated, for thinking outside of the box, that's the sort of thinking that is so important to save lives when it counts, well done to all concerned.

Wow that sounds harsh! What exactly happened? Was it a case that it was somebody else's job and you did it and then the union got involved?

Irish Steve

Roblestone wrote: »

Wow that sounds harsh! What exactly happened? Was it a case that it was somebody else's job and you did it and then the union got involved?

Nothing so complex. A Union nark decided that I hadn't been trained on that procedure by the company, so filed a formal complaint, even though he wasn't there to witness what was done.

The Union rep that was supposedly on my side was more interested in looking after his management nark, and didn't think to even mention that the company training and procedures didn't have ANY aircraft specific information, and only covered the equipment the company used, and didn't think to call the training manager, who I subsequently discovered was asked what he would have done, and replied "exactly the same as Steve did"! Yeah.

Underlying issue was that because I had a lot of aircraft and aviation related experience, and an air to ground radio licence, I could do jobs that were "off limits" to many of the other people, and the fact that I was doing that job was undermining the efforts of the union to try and force a "more pay" issue for that work.

There is an underlying issue in some areas of the airport, it's not run by the managers of the companies, it's run by SIPTU, and if they don't like you, they will find ways to get you out without much trouble, I made the mistake of trusting the union to look after my interest, and only discovered after there was nothing I could do that I'd been sold down the river by the union, to protect their man who put the "complaint" in.

Strumms

Wow.. Harsh indeed.... I work as a trainer airside (not a full time gig) in addition to my regular airline job and it's standard to hammer home to people that if you are not trained to do it.... Don't do it. However in circumstances like that where you had the type rating and the knowledge and considering how it was a life critical situation potentially to loose your job was ridiculous. Boneheaded call by your employers... If they had a concern they could have communicated it with a letter of concern and left it there...

Also I have seen at close quarters how union muppets at the airport conduct their business so I'm not all that surprised that they may have been part of your downfall rather then having your back...not a member either and that won't change anytime soon...

flazio

I wonder though. Where was EI-MED while all this was going on?

Roblestone

Irish Steve wrote: »

Nothing so complex. A Union nark decided that I hadn't been trained on that procedure by the company, so filed a formal complaint, even though he wasn't there to witness what was done.

The Union rep that was supposedly on my side was more interested in looking after his management nark, and didn't think to even mention that the company training and procedures didn't have ANY aircraft specific information, and only covered the equipment the company used, and didn't think to call the training manager, who I subsequently discovered was asked what he would have done, and replied "exactly the same as Steve did"! Yeah.

Underlying issue was that because I had a lot of aircraft and aviation related experience, and an air to ground radio licence, I could do jobs that were "off limits" to many of the other people, and the fact that I was doing that job was undermining the efforts of the union to try and force a "more pay" issue for that work.

There is an underlying issue in some areas of the airport, it's not run by the managers of the companies, it's run by SIPTU, and if they don't like you, they will find ways to get you out without much trouble, I made the mistake of trusting the union to look after my interest, and only discovered after there was nothing I could do that I'd been sold down the river by the union, to protect their man who put the "complaint" in.

What happened to you was over the top, you shouldn't have been dismissed, but I'm going to have to agree that you shouldn't have done something that was not in your contract. There are 100's of Aircraft Engineers in Dublin Airport and the flight was not relying on you to start the aircraft.

You went ahead and did a job that somebody else has been hired for, it's not your business. Demarcation is a huge deal in the skilled jobs sector like Aircraft Engineers and most other trades. The unions see people like you, who are willing to do jobs that are not yours, as a threat. If unions let acts like this happen, companies would just start hiring guys like you as general operatives, pay them average wage and let go a couple of the well-paid engineers.

I know my example is extreme, but this is what happens. The point is - just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should do it.

I don't think it was fair to sack you over it though. And if this had happened in an airport in the middle of nowhere where there were no engineers, I would completely agree with you in that case.

Roblestone

flazio wrote: »

I wonder though. Where was EI-MED while all this was going on?

Someone may correct me here, but as far as I know, EI-MED is run by a private company for mainly patient transport and repatriation. I'd imagine the cost of getting this jet to fly the route would not be cheap, so why not just use a perfectly good commercial aircraft which is going that way anyway.

ectoraige

CelticRambler wrote: »

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

I would guess the duty office received the call before the donor had died, he was likely being kept on life support. Once the transport plans were in place, and the transplant teams on standby, the donor would then have been allowed to pass away naturally with the family by his side.

ProfessorPlum

CelticRambler wrote: »

Wow. In all my years posting on the internet, I've never had a unanimous mis-interpretation of one of my posts. My point was not that I, as a passenger, wouldn't want to wait for a life-saving cargo, but that whoever was handling this in Tralee couldn't even get themselves organised in time for a 07.30 departure when they had (possibly) up to twelve hours to harvest the organs and make a 20km road journey.

I am very familiar with the management of these kinds of medical interventions, so if was a case of "sitting around waiting for the donor to die" then it would probably have been far better to have had a garda & paramedic motorcycle whip it up to Dublin. Unless, of course, there was no-one else on the Kerry flight ...

I'd be inclined to suppose that you are not at all familiar with these kinds of medical interventions. It is an extremely complicated process, as Reg'stoy has explained. Getting the organ to the aircraft with the hour of STD was pretty good going. I'm sure there were more pressing issues for the transplant teams than the STD of the Aer Arran flight. So well done Aer Arran and the staff involved in coordinating this transplant.

urajoke

CelticRambler wrote: »

If the Air Corps duty officer received a call on Sunday night, how come the Aer Arann flight had to wait an hour beyond the scheduled departure time? Even on a bad day, it's not an overnight road trip from Tralee to Faranfore. You'd be a bit cheesed off as a passenger if you missed your appointment or connection in Dublin because someone dithered around for eight to twelve hours.

In fairness based on what you put in this post you can understand why people reacted the way they have. Maybe next time choose your words better if you don't want to be misunderstood.

Irish Steve

Roblestone wrote: »

What happened to you was over the top, you shouldn't have been dismissed, but I'm going to have to agree that you shouldn't have done something that was not in your contract. There are 100's of Aircraft Engineers in Dublin Airport and the flight was not relying on you to start the aircraft.

You went ahead and did a job that somebody else has been hired for, it's not your business. Demarcation is a huge deal in the skilled jobs sector like Aircraft Engineers and most other trades. The unions see people like you, who are willing to do jobs that are not yours, as a threat. If unions let acts like this happen, companies would just start hiring guys like you as general operatives, pay them average wage and let go a couple of the well-paid engineers.

I know my example is extreme, but this is what happens. The point is - just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you should do it.

I don't think it was fair to sack you over it though. And if this had happened in an airport in the middle of nowhere where there were no engineers, I would completely agree with you in that case.

Hard call in that if the Duty Manager says "can you see if you can get yer man out of trouble", that's the job, and I took it on knowing what might be involved. The management were well aware of my specific skill set, and very happy to use some of those skills to save the company money, and that was why they waited till I came on duty to try to solve the problem, he's been on the ramp a couple of hours with the problem before I went in.

Engineers, that's an interesting issue, which was highlighted by the recent AAIU report on Cork, there have to be contracts in place, and the engineers have to be licensed to work on the type, and I will put money on it that there are not too many (if any these days) engineers at Dublin that are licensed to work on light twin piston aircraft, and in that sense, what was done at the aircraft wasn't an engineering job, as no tools of any sort were needed to gain access to the battery, it is in the front baggage compartment, and while it needed jump leads rather than a GPU, the principle of external power to start an aircraft is standard ramp handling procedure, which was part of my training. It was certainly part of the type rating ground school training that I did that I knew how to get the aircraft started without the assistance of an engineer, and I had to know what was, or was not allowed in terms of "maintenance" without an engineer present to sign off on the work, and prove that knowledge to an examiner of the regulatory body in order to get the pass for the type rating.

The issue was the grey area of the degree of training provided by the company. In theory, the company had access to a maintenance engineer that they could have called on, but he would have had no licensing, approvals or training on the aircraft in question, in that respect, I would have had more specific training on the type than a line maintenance engineer who's main task is commercial jets, and that training was approved by a higher authority than the company procedures.

A handling agent that offers service to any operator has (in theory) to be able to do any of the tasks that aircraft requires, so that can include potable water, toilet servicing, ground power, maybe an airstart.

The service provider will train their staff on how their equipment works. What they don't do is provide ANY training on the aircraft specific aspects of the job, in that they don't have the technical manuals for every type that can require assistance, so the ground staff are TOTALLY dependent on the captain of the aircraft to provide the information on how that aircraft operates, right down to the extent of where the connection points are for the different services, and specific things like how much fluid goes back into the toilet systems after the tanks have been emptied.

As an example, for push back, there has to be some sort of system to disable the nose wheel steering power while the tug is connected. On some aircraft, it's a pin that fits in a lever and holds the lever in the "inactive" position, on others, it's a thing that looks like a glorified nappy pin, but there are then some aircraft that have a specific device that remains with the aircraft, so after push back, the device, (clamp or whatever) has to be removed and then passed back to the captain of the aircraft. That gets "interesting" if the aircraft also has to use ground power to start the engines, as it means that the ramp staff have to approach the nose of the aircraft to pass the device back to the captain with the engines running. That can be VERY dangerous on a prop aircraft, and requires caution with a jet aircraft, and the ground handling organisations provide NO information in their training about specific anomalies of types. So, me doing a procedure that was under the supervision of the aircraft captain, who had got approval from their maintenance manager was within my contract, and was being done as part of the specific "get yer man out of trouble" instruction that was agreed with the Duty Manager.

The issue was a senior management with no cojones to stand up to the bullies of SIPTU, and no technical understanding of the day to day aspects of the job. The Ramp manager was clueless, he'd been working on the ramp on one occasion when there was a union dispute going on, and nearly put another operative in hospital by taking the bypass pin out of the nosewheel of an Airbus 300 before the bar had been taken off the nosewheel. The 15 Ft long bar swept all in it's path as the nosewheel turned through 50 degrees, and one operative was knocked flying by the bar. It could have done a lot more damage to both personnel and the aircraft, he was lucky in that respect, but clueless.

The local training manager didn't get called, as I mentioned, he would have done what I did, in order to provide the service needed by the operator to get the aircraft back in the air, as it was in accordance with the procedure approved by the maintenance manger at the main base of the operator.

In hindsight, if I'd withdrawn my written statement, they would have had nothing that would have been usable "in evidence", as no one else saw what was done at the aircraft, or how it was done, but I put the facts in my statement, on the basis that I'd done nothing outside of the task I'd been given.

Now I'm going geek, and only people who have aircraft flying experience will know what this means, and just how serious this could have been.

I was the laughing stock of the crew room one morning for refusing to allow a Malev 737 to depart on time, as I needed something clarified before the aircraft flew again. It had night stopped, and had an engineer do "the checks". It eventually left over an hour late, but only after phone calls to Budapest, to find out why there was aluminium speed tape over the P2 alternate static ports, there was nothing in the tech logs, and no faults or issues deferred.

Turned out the aircraft had been deep washed 2 days earlier, and the wash crew had overlooked the removal of the tape when they'd finished. The aircraft has flown 2 days with the P2 alternate static ports covered, and that had been missed by the crew(s) doing walk round checks, and it had also been missed by the engineer doing the overnight checks. I'd spotted it when I was doing my walk round having towed the aircraft from the overnight parking stand.

I was not going to allow that aircraft to fly again without a very clear explanation of why the tape was there or it's removal. In theory, way beyond my pay grade, but in practice, a potential crash, yes it could have been that serious in certain circumstances, and because of my background with flying, and the training I'd done, which meant I understood the risks, I could not ignore it.

It was a huge joke in the crew room, but for me, the telling situation was that after the aircraft had departed, I was told very clearly by the senior manager NOT to put anything on paper about the incident, it should have been an MOR, mandatory occurrence report, to the IAA, but that might have had "implications" for the engineer who had done the overnight checks. I needed the job, so I had to let that side of it go, but it made the cultural position very clear, and made a laughing stock of the concept of aviation safety.

I was just happy that I had resolved the issue from a safety point of view, the aircraft was safe to fly once the tape was off, so while I wasn't happy about the management attitude, I could at least sleep peacefully at night.

OK, we've drifted somewhat off course of the original thread subject, but I guess it highlights the fact that there are times in aviation when it is appropriate to do things out of the ordinary to provide a service that could well be life saving.