Ground Control to MedEvac
University MedEvac communication technicians help get high level care to patients!
Sally Gilotti , Lehigh Valley Hospital

When Mike Ramos, a University MedEvac air medical communications technician, directed a flight crew to a small plane crash outside Quakertown, it appeared to be a routine call. But, then the patient began asking for the voice on the other end of the radio.
It turns out, the patient was Ramos’ long-time friend, Perry Zimmerman, badly injured.

Soon Zimmerman recovered and was asking for Ramos again – this time about his job in flight communications for MedEvac. Zimmerman, a paramedic, had retired from a 22-year flight career as an air traffic controller at Lehigh Valley International Airport and wanted to follow his passion for emergency services.

Now Ramos and Zimmerman work together, managing communications for six MedEvac helicopters that serve eastern Pennsylvania, southeastern New York, New Jersey, Delaware and northeastern Maryland. “I’m proud to be a member of this team,” Zimmerman says.

During a 12-hour shift, one of five technicians answers requests for MedEvac from its communication headquarters, next to the emergency department waiting area at LVH-Cedar Crest. When a county or city communications center requests MedEvac at an emergency (80 percent of calls), the technician uses a specially-designed computer system to locate the closest available team and the coordinates (longitude and latitude) of the emergency. In less than five minutes, MedEvac is on its way. Throughout the mission, the technician relays information between the flight team, the communications center and the trauma center receiving the patient.

The remaining calls are requests for MedEvac to transport patients from one hospital to another. We have one of the busiest communication headquarters in the nation – and extra hands pitch in when they can, like Donald Shambo and Michael Adams, who were technicians before they became flight paramedics.

“Everyday I walk in the door with the same enthusiasm and excitement as I did on my first day in 1987,” Ramos says. “Although we don’t directly care for patients, I feel tremendous satisfaction when we’re able to help get high level care to them.”

Ramos says he fell in love with the air medical program after moving from New York City to the Poconos in the mid-1980s. After witnessing MedEvac respond to a motor vehicle accident, he dropped the photography course he planned on taking at a local community college and signed up for an emergency medical technician course. He then took a job as a MedEvac communication technician.

Ramos’ voice is known across the airwaves by those who regularly tune-in to the MedEvac emergency channel. Strangers overhearing him in restaurants have excitedly encouraged him to say “University MedEvac,” just to be sure it’s him.


Did You Know?

MedEvac’s six helicopters have flown 2.55 million miles since their first flight in 1981. That’s 107 trips around the world.

The helicopters average about 106,000 miles a year. That’s 14 trips to Spain and back.

MedEvac transported 1,600 patients in the past year to LVHHN – an average of four patients a day. That many people could fill the LVH-Cedar Crest auditorium more than seven times.

MedEvac flies at 170 miles per hour. That's the same speed a NASCAR stock car travels at Pocono Raceway. (Our emergency department colleagues, including MedEvac personnel, provide emergency services at the two Pocono NASCAR races.)

MedEvac flies between 2,000 and 2,500 feet. That’s as high as stacking seven PPL buildings (in downtown Allentown) on top of each other.