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High-Octane Nursing

Ready for Anything

Having a wide range of skills at the ready is a must for emergency nurses, since they’re called upon to respond to a range of medical emergencies. “We have any type of bizarre thing you can think of,” Howat says. “Chances are in your career in the ER, you will see those rare things that you only see in textbooks.” Howat has encountered parking lot births, foreign objects lodged in every place they shouldn’t be, motorcycle parts stuck in legs and mental cases who truly thought they were on a bus to Sesame Street.

Whether landing in a cornfield or at an industrial complex, Campbell says a flight nurse must know how to adapt. Her team unexpectedly discovered injured children as the wreckage of a car accident was being dismantled. “All of a sudden, our whole scene has changed,” she says. “We have to instantly change our plan, change our equipment, change our medication.”