Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

In an emotional ceremony Monday in North Chicago, Flight for Life officials credited the North Chicago Fire Department with the organization’s most dramatic rescue effort in 2015, honoring local first-responders police officers and firefighters for saving the life of a Chicago woman last autumn.

The 22nd annual Scene Call of the Year Award for 2015 was presented to the firefighting paramedic team of Cmdr. Joshua Rickabaugh, Cmdr. Joshua Monroe and firefighters Danny Roark, Joseph Hernandez and Joseph Schimanski.

Nicole Wood of Chicago, was a passenger in a BMW SUV that crashed into a gravel truck on Route 41 south of Route 137 on Sept. 21. The SUV’s driver was not seriously hurt, but Wood was trapped in the twisted metal of the wreckage, crushed beneath the truck.

Rescue personnel said they went through virtually every extrication tool in their trucks in an effort to free the critically injured, unconscious woman. Route 41 was blocked off to create a landing zone for the helicopter.

“We knew (the victim) had multi-system trauma, and it was important to get her out quickly,” Rickabaugh said, but he added that “with the complexities of the extrication, it took us one hour and 20 minutes,” with the norm being 20 to 40 minutes.

North Chicago officials stressed the mutual aid and invaluable assistance to the call by personnel from Naval Station Great Lakes, Knollwood, Libertyville, the North Chicago Police Department, North Chicago Police dispatch, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and Flight For Life.

North Chicago Fire Chief Dell Urban said after the ceremony that “this was the call of a lifetime, an extraordinary accident. Several chiefs on location said they’d never seen anything like this, in terms of the lengthy extrication.”

Of some 1,000 calls a year that Flight for Life responds to, only a handful are considered by a panel of judges, based on guidelines for using air medical transport. The submissions were examined for scene safety, triage decisions, critical thinking, complex planning and accident scene management, integration of the helicopter into the call, and use of skills that went beyond the call of duty to treat the patient.

thanks Dan

Tags: Flight for Life helicopter, North Chicago Fire Chief Dell Urban, North Chicago Fire Department, Scene Call of the Year Award