posted October 28, 2024

Air Methods Recognizes Flight Nurse Luke Ballmer on National First Responders Day

KEARNEY, NE, Oct. 28, 2024 – Growing up in Gothenburg, NE, TriCity LifeNet Flight Nurse Luke Ballmer would often see helicopters flying patients from various rural locations and often wondered what it would be like to provide that lifesaving care while flying across the heartland. Today, Ballmer is an expert with over 1,100 patient transports and counting.

In 2017, Congress designated Oct. 28 as National First Responders Day to honors the paramedics, EMTs, firefighters, police officers and 911 dispatchers who answer the call when a crisis arises. For Ballmer, this day is a reminder of his relentless commitment to helping those in need which is evidenced in the more than 1,000 flights he’s completed to date.

“The 1,000^th flight is just as exciting as the first,” said Ballmer, who estimates that he moved into four-digits sometime in 2023. “Always doing what is right for the patient is what keeps me going.”

Even before he took his first flight as part of an air medical team, Ballmer was familiar with the world of first responders. The son of Gothenburg Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mark Ballmer, he grew up going on calls with his father and knew by the time he was in high school that he wanted to work in helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). After starting his medical career as an EMT, he graduated from nursing school in 2009 and worked four years in a trauma center in Lincoln, NE, before embarking on his HEMS career in 2012.

“Having Luke on our team is incredibly beneficial for several reasons,” said Area Manager Austin Lambing. “He has built strong relationships as both a native Nebraskan and an experienced clinician. Our hospital and EMS partners know him and trust his care.”

In 2021, he joined Air Methods and in March of 2022, he helped open the TriCity LifeNet base in Kearney. For Ballmer, the biggest part of what he does every day is helping to make sure that rural Nebraska has access to critical care 24/7. Fortunately, TriCity LifeNet isn’t the only Air Methods base in the state of Nebraska. LifeNet of the Heartland, whose first base in Omaha recently celebrated its 45^th anniversary, also operates bases in Norfolk, Columbus, Crete and North Platte.

“The quickness and efficiency that we can provide patients in an emergency situation is huge,” said Ballmer. “Not everyone in rural communities has access to air medical transport and the ability we have to get patients to elevated care, whether that is in Kearney, Lincoln, Omaha or even larger cities like Denver or Kansas City, is a big deal.”

TriCity LifeNet offers comprehensive critical care across all ages, from infants to seniors, encompassing cardiac, trauma, high-risk obstetrics, and various other serious medical conditions. They can also accommodate requests for intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABP) and Impella cardiac devices, as well as administer warm, humidified oxygen to address specific pulmonary complications necessitating advanced mechanical ventilation support. All LifeNet helicopters in Nebraska, including TriCity LifeNet, carry and administer whole blood onboard every flight, which has been studied and proven to provide better outcomes for trauma patients.

“We don’t have the services, the type of medical doctors or surgeons like bigger cities have,” said Lambing. “Our job is to get patients from a rural area to a more urban area. Without LifeNet, it would take those patients three or four hours to get to care. When transporting by air, we can get them to that crucial care in a fraction of the time.”

All LifeNet of the Heartland clinicians receive ongoing advanced training, and have access to Air Methods Ascend, an in-person and online training program that allows clinicians to perform at the top of their licensure. Air Methods Ascend is available to medical personnel across the country.

Air Methods is committed to providing air medical services to all members of the communities they serve. They are in-network with most major health insurance providers for emergency air medical services, and out-of-network patients will never receive a balance bill from Air Methods. Additionally, their patient advocacy program works with all patients, regardless of insurance, to ensure affordability.