Flight For Life Helps Lift DHS Students’ Career Aspirations

Durango High School students looked to the skies for inspiration during a unique career event and display by "Flight for Life". Thanks for watching this edition of "The Local News Network", brought to you by Happy Pappy's Pizza and Wings and Kroeger's Ace Hardware. I'm Connor Shreve. "Flight for Life" was greeted by cellphones, selfies and smiles as the rescue helicopter and crew touched down in the high school's baseball diamond to field questions from students interested in the medical field. The events astounded students.

It was amazing. I mean, that's not something we get to see every day and it's something where a lot of the time you hear "Flight for Life" as saving lives. And we got to experience that and experience the people who actually do that on a daily basis. And we got to see what their life is like and how they live every day.

It is generally pretty rare to see a "Flight for Life" crew outside its standard operation. But the school's career and technical education teacher, Kyle Montgomery, reached out to a friend who works for "Flight for Life" to make the event happen.

My biggest goal is to help students find something they're interested in, and then in the meantime, having them get to the point where they get an appreciation for what all other medical professionals do, because no medical professional works in a vacuum. You have to work as a team with people that you don't have a clue what they do or what their education was but just having trust with them. So that's part of the goal, is helping students find what they want to do next after high school.

And while all students got to enjoy touch-down and take-off, only those part of the school's healthcare pathway were allowed a closer look, and to be a part of the question and answer session. Student Mack Otter learned how diverse work in the medical field can be.

Some people were interested in different aspects of what the "Flight for Life" had to offer. So there was a pilot himself, who just focused on getting the emergency technicians to where they needed to be. And then there was the actual people who were performing things on the patients that would actually treat those patients. So it was cool while we were kind of circled up out there. One kid was talking to the pilot specifically cause they were more interested in that part of it. And then other kids could talk to the people, if they were more interested in actually treating patients themselves.

Both Otter and fellow student, Bailey Noonan were impressed by the generous nature of the "Flight for Life" crew.

The pilot talked about how he had started off working in a cubicle, working in an office, and he said that he didn't want to live the rest of his life doing that. And that's when he decided to be a pilot for this amazing program. And I think that his drive to do something more is something that I really took away.

They mentioned that if you have basic health insurance, "Flight for Life" themselves actually won't bill you themselves. Sometimes with major injuries and major treatments, there can be an actual major bill and the patient is forced to decide between, "Okay, do I get the proper care for what's good for me, or do I put my entire family in debt through this bill?" And so it was really cool. It just sounded like they were offering something that was really accessible to a lot of people and a lot of people are going to benefit from it.

And in sharing that kindness, "Flight for Life" hopes to have inspired some students to become our next generation of healthcare workers. Thanks for watching this edition of "The Local News Network". I'm Connor Shreve.

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