Helicopter emergency medical services deliver life-saving benefits to communities by connecting residents to crucial healthcare, especially when every second counts. Only a few weeks after St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho, opened its doors to pediatric trauma patients, it received an urgent call. After an unfortunate mishap with livestock on a rural ranch in Hammett, Idaho, a young girl named Brinley Oldham was critically injured and in need of immediate care.
The Air Medical St. Luke’s team rushed to the site and was able to quickly deliver Brinley to St. Luke’s Hospital in its Bell 429 EMS helicopter. After a year of therapy and specialist visits, she has made a full recovery, and in February 2020 she was named Idaho’s 2020 Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Champion. Through the staff’s readiness and dedication, Brinley was able to return to her active life of riding horses and showing steers.