Between August 1 and August 31, my family will be summiting "one two three four five SIX!" mountains in Maine to support LifeFlight of Maine, a challenge that will symbolize the difficulties of providing lifesaving emergency medical care to Maine's many island and rural communities.
Three years ago when my son was born, he suffered severe meconium aspiration which led to respiratory distress and a slew of other issues. It quickly became clear that our rural hospital would be unable to provide him the respiratory support and advanced monitoring he needed. Every moment counted, and he was only a few hours old when he took his LifeFlight helicopter flight to the closest hospital with an adequate neonatal intensive care unit.
After an 18-day stay in the NICU, including a three day therapeutic hypothermia protocol, he was finally stable and we were able to take him home. And after 2 years of extensive NICU and neurological followups, he graduated from his NICU clinics!
He's now proud to say that he has been in a "hoptercopter". He loves cars (especially Chevys), music, and adventuring outside. When I asked him what big adventuring goal he wanted to set in order to raise money for the helicopter hospital, he immediately said "climb one two three four five SIX mountains!" So here we are! We'll be gearing up -- me, my husband, our son, and our 8-month-old daughter -- and tackling mountains across Downeast Maine as part of the Grateful Patient team. We hope you join us in supporting this amazing cause.
LifeFlight of Maine is a nonprofit organization and the state’s only emergency medical helicopter service. With three helicopters, an airplane and ground ambulances, LifeFlight brings ICU-level care directly to the patient. As Maine’s only air ambulance service, LifeFlight has served more than 40,000 patients, one life at a time, from every community and hospital in the state.
