The need to serve and help others drives Windham resident Caitlin Sidley in her role as a registered nurse for LifeFlight of Maine, the state’s sole air ambulance service.
 |
| Windham resident Caitlyn Sidley is a registered nurse for LifeFlight of Maine, the state's sole air ambulance service. Sidley flies with the LifeFlight crew to deliver advanced and specialized care to patients experiencing severe illness or who have suffered a significant trauma and helps care for them while they are airlifted to the hospital. SUBMITTED PHOTO |
Flying on an Augusta AW109 helicopter based in Sanford, Sidley delivers advanced and specialized care to patients experiencing severe illness or who have suffered a significant trauma, like those incurred in a serious car accident, while transporting them to the hospital.
“The most rewarding part are the Thank Yous that come in from patients that do well and from patient’s families,” she said. “When they tell you, ‘I know they’re in good hands’ and they trust us with their lives on the worse day of their lives.”
The variety of cases and the ability to devote attention to a single patient were driving forces that inspired Sidley to focus on airborne nursing as opposed to providing care at hospitals.
“In this role, I’m able to concentrate on one patient and give them my all, and then it’s an adventurous job,” she said, adding that in a hospital setting, a nurse is required to divide attention between several patients, in addition to caring for the patients’ families, among other duties. “You don’t know what you’re getting from one call to the next. It can be a baby in one call and in the next, you’re with an adult or landing on a highway helping a trauma or you’re taking a patient from one hospital to another. I like the mix and not knowing what’s coming next.”
While in the air, Sidley can provide advanced care, including running tests, giving medications or blood as needed, and managing ventilators for patients who are intubated to help aid their breathing. The helicopter also contains a “point of care” system that enables the caregivers to run tests while in flight to provide an additional level of care, ensuring patients receive the correct medications or treatments to help improve their condition before arriving at the hospital. Sidley is also paired with a paramedic during the transit and the two work in tandem to provide care.
“I like our cardiac calls. Those are my favorite to do,” Sidley said. “Our bread and butter are STEMIs, but I love a complicated cardiogenic shock call, multiple IV medications, managing these patients and trying to get them better before they get to the hospital or wherever they’re going.”
One common misconception about the air ambulance service is that they are just monitoring the patient while enroute to the hospital. The nurses and paramedics take steps to help stabilize and provide care to help patients arrive at the hospital in better condition.
“People think we are just giving them a ride to the hospital, but we’re actually doing care and trying to make them better from the minute we get to the bedside,” Sidley said.
One of the most challenging aspects of the role is waiting for the next call. Time is spent in various ways, including added training to maintain certifications, meeting with tour groups, and maintaining the base of operations, but staying alert can be hard.
“The waiting can be hard because you can get bored and get complacent. You need to be able to stay focused and stay training,” she said. “There is a ton of extra education and training that go into keeping you on the line and keeping you on flight duty.”
Sidley also noted that patients should not hesitate to engage the air ambulance service based on financial concerns.
“People are often afraid to call because they think that there is going to be a huge bill attached to us. We’re a nonprofit and we’re not going to deny anybody care,” she said. “We get it done and we work with you. Financial factors should never be considered.”
LifeFlight offers a charity program to help patients who are unable to meet the financial obligations once their insurance determines how much they’ll cover. Patients are also only financially responsible for the care they receive, as the LifeFlight Foundation, a separate nonprofit organization, pays for aircraft costs, medical equipment, training and education, and all the associated operating costs.
LifeFlight of Maine was founded in 1998 and has bases in Sanford, Lewiston and Bangor. From July 2024 to June 2025, the service transported 2,876 patients. Of those, 642 calls were for cardiac care, while 929 were for acute medical conditions that are not related to cardiac or stroke and 488 were trauma cases. There were also 223 stroke cases, which require rapid treatment to stop symptoms and prevent long term injury.
Patients range in age from newborns to the most elderly, with the majority of patients aged 51 to 80. <
