Life Star’s many capabilities on center stage at MidState
Lifesaving potential came to fore in flying badly burned boys to Boston

By Jeffery Kurz
Record-Journal staff

MERIDEN — A Life Star helicopter paid a visit to MidState Medical Center Tuesday, but for once it was not in response to an emergency situation.
The helicopter and crew, which operates out of the rooftop helipad at Hartford Hospital, Mid State’s affiliate, was in Meriden to show off a little and spread the word about its services.
“I think every little bit helps,” said Michael Sahjian, a registered nurse and Life Star crew member. “Even Hartford Hospital isn’t fully aware of what we’re capable of.”
Life Star’s capabilities were on full display in late August when the helicopter transported two young victims of a Meriden house fire from MidState to the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston.
After more than a month at the Boston burn center, the boys were recently discharged and returned home, said Kathleen Golden, a Shriners spokesperson. Trent and Tristyn-Myles D’ Aniello were critically injured in the Franklin Street fire on Aug. 21. Trent, 2, and Tristyn, 4, were in the critical care floor of the hospital, being treated for smoke inhalation and secondand third-degree burns.
“That’s a good update,” said Golden, of their release.
Life Star typically makes headlines when it responds to accidents, and its presence is usually an indication of the serious nature of a situation. Most calls, about 60 percent, are hospital-to-hospital transfers, such as the one performed for the D’ Aniello children, Sahjian said.
The boys were transported, one at a time, in trips that took just 40 minutes. The medical capability of the helicopter, which can fly at 155 miles per hour, is able to both maintain the stabilizing efforts of an emergency room and prepare patients for the specialty services ahead, Sahjian said.
“This is basically an emergency room on rotors,” said Susan S. Mc Gaughan, Mid State’s emergency department nursing director. “Everything we can do in the emergency department, they can do.”
Two Life Star helicopters operate in Connecticut, each covering about a 150-mile radius. The other Life Star operates out of The William W. Backus Hospital, in Norwich. Each makes about 600 service trips a year.
Crews consist of a pilot, respiratory therapist and registered nurse. While the interior of the helicopter is similar to the inside of an ambulance, the available services are more extensive, said William Muskett, a respiratory therapist. There are, for example, 70 different medications available inside the helicopter, Sahjian said.
“What you’re getting is truly a flying intensive care unit,” Muskett said. Many hospitals, he said, don’t fully realize that. Throughout the mid-day, MidState workers strolled out to the helipad to talk with the crew and take a peek inside the helicopter.
“We’re raising awareness of our capabilities and service to different hospitals,” Muskett said. “They don’t understand our level of care, so we’re just trying to spread the word about our capabilities.”
“Essentially, everything they can do in an intensive care unit or emergency room we can do, or initiate the care” he said.
Sahjian, a 1992 Cheshire High School graduate, has been a Life Star crew member for three years, having done similar work in South Carolina.
Pilots work for Air Methods, which provides services throughout the U.S. Richard Magner is one of eight pilots based in Hartford. Most pilots received their early training in the U.S. Army. Three of those working out of Hartford, including Magner, are veterans of the war in Vietnam, in which helicopters were used extensively.
In working with trauma patients, a! bout half the time the helicopter is performing what Magner called “hot” unloads, which means while the rotors are still turning.
“It’s incredible to actually see it in action, how quick and how refined and how coordinated it is,” said Mc Gaughan.
Magner said Life Star tries to make a number of such visits to hospitals each year, taking advantage of a more relaxed atmosphere.
“One of the biggest comments we get is how snug it is,” he said.