In the middle of this week's brutal winter storm, a life-saving mission took to the skies to help patients at ECU Health.
By Sunday, the ice and snow had created a crisis at the medical center in Greenville. The hospital was running dangerously low on platelets, but with roads across Eastern North Carolina covered in thick ice, it was simply too dangerous for a delivery truck to make the trip from Wake County.
That is when North Carolina Emergency Management called in the Highway Patrol’s Aviation Unit. A state helicopter met the supply team at RDU Airport, loaded up the critical blood products, and took off for Pitt County.
The flight, which would have taken hours by car in these conditions, was over in less than sixty minutes. An ambulance was waiting on the tarmac at the Pitt-Greenville Airport to rush the supplies the final mile to the hospital.
Thanks to that quick teamwork, doctors say there was zero interruption in care for patients needing those life-saving products.
