Hannah Anderson, Transcript Section 8

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Hannah Anderson,
Transcript Section 8

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HANNAH: And so Naomi and I were there to stabilize him, to get him back in the helicopter and transport him from -- from mining camp to Wiseman, get back into the 207-type airplane, which is crowded.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Get this big 230 pound fellow in there. And transport to Fairbanks. Those were the days when the health aides had to accompany the patient.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Back then.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Uh-hum.

MARLA: Did you have to --

HANNAH: Didn't have a life like they do now. Nowadays, you know, they send an airplane out and the health aides don't have to do that, they just put them on the airplane and send them in.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: But we use to have to accompany the patient that we stabilized or take care of or whatever.

MARLA: Did you have to go to other villages often?

HANNAH: No.

MARLA: Most people came to you first --

HANNAH: Yeah.

MARLA: -- and then go on to Fairbanks?

HANNAH: Yeah. Uh-hum. Yeah.

MARLA: So that was --

HANNAH: Yeah, we didn't have to go out to the villages to do that, except when you get called to something like this, some accident.

MARLA: Emergencies.

HANNAH: Emergency. And that one stands out. You know, we didn't do that very -- very much. And we were both, you know, already probably a little bit stressed from stabilizing him because he was a really heavy person to move, and we didn't -- and he was pretty broken up.

And we got him stabilized, you know. And he was kind of a big person.
And so I can't remember how -- we had our manual, of course. Our wonderful manual.

And so we were reading it and we said, okay. We need to give him something to do with his pain. So I was to do that.

We had IVs going on him already, and -- and he's in pain, so we're going to give him a shot, right. I can't remember what it was now. And so I gave him a shot on his left arm, or where, I can't remember.

Anyway, start reading the manual again, and I said, oh, wow, this guy is 200 and some pounds, that is not going to -- this whatever amount of painkiller I gave him was not going to do anything. And so that's when Naomi, she looked at me and said, better give him another one, so we did.

And then that relaxed him, you know, and felt okay. Got him -- flew to Wiseman, got him in the airplane. Started flying, started toward Fairbanks. The weather was bumpy, it was not snowing or raining, it was summer, it wasn't raining, but it was terribly bumpy.

And I'm back there with the patient sitting backwards. And all I could see is this -- the windows were like above the -- level with my eyes, and the airplane is kind of going like this, besides going up and down, you know, and Naomi's sitting up front with the pilot. The whole airplane is taken up with this patient, the stretchers and everything.

And going along and I looked up at Naomi and she looked back at me and she said I was green.

MARLA: Oh, no.

HANNAH: I'm tending to the patient, making sure, you know, he had his moisturizers for his mouth.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Checking his blood pressure now and then. Tending to him. But in the meantime, I was just getting absolutely sick, I guess. I just felt like I was going to be the patient. And then --

MARLA: Get sick?
HANNAH: I'm going to get sick in a minute, but I didn't want to -- didn't want to show it. I'm taking care of this guy.

And she looked back at me and she says, let's trade places. She put me up front with the pilot and she came back here. I don't know how we managed it, but we did, and she's sitting back there doing the same thing I was, you know, taking care of him. And that's the longest flight.

MARLA: Ever?

HANNAH: Ever. An hour, and I think with a 207, it was an hour and a half or something like that in this situation.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: And when I'm up there with the pilot, the pilot said, don't look down, look way away, you know, because I'm still not sure.

MARLA: Yeah.

HANNAH: I'm feeling very sick.

MARLA: I get airsick, too.

HANNAH: Yeah. That's the worst feeling. And he said, look over -- look at a distance.

MARLA: Horizon.

HANNAH: Yeah. Don't look straight down. So I started feeling better, you know. And I looked back and Naomi is all green. She's just -- I said, okay, time to switch. And we say, are we ever going to get to Fairbanks? You know. Oh, it's -- we're not thinking of ourself, we're thinking of him.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: What he's going through. And that's the most important is him. Never mind us getting our -- feeling like this, but we had -- it's a good thing there was two of us that was health aides.

MARLA: Yeah.

HANNAH: Which we supported each other.

MARLA: Yeah.

HANNAH: And made it. We got into Fairbanks.

MARLA: That's awesome.

HANNAH: Yeah.

MARLA: And he was okay?

HANNAH: He was okay. He died later. Way some month later. With a blood clot from, you know, from that.

MARLA: Yeah.

HANNAH: Trauma on his -- he had a broken hip, broken arm. He was all pretty much crushed on one side, evidently.

MARLA: Wow. That must have been really hard.

HANNAH: Uh-hum. But we were being really careful in getting him stabilized, with that leg especially.