Sean Rickards

An autumn storm quickly approached as Sean Rickards and his workmate hurried to backfill a countryside dugout with a backhoe and semi-truck.

Suddenly, a miscue wedged Sean between the two massive machines, the semi-trailer only stopping when it hit the corner of the backhoe’s bucket.

“I had no time to move,” said Sean, a general contractor, husband, and father of three. “I was broken within a millimetre of my life.”

The moment his partner realized what happened and jumped on the phone, emergency responders leapt into action and STARS was notified. Local crews freed Sean and whisked him to a nearby emergency room, where three physicians were working.

“I was told by the doctors that his right side was completely crushed,” said Mindy Rickards, Sean’s wife. “He had no sort of rib structure. His sternum was broken, the left side of his ribs were all broken, he had shattered some of his vertebrae, and his lungs were pretty much confetti.”

Both lungs had collapsed, and Sean clearly needed Level 1 trauma care in the city — almost four hours away by road.

Meanwhile, STARS pilots Darryl Dash and David Harding checked the unsettled weather and saw a safe window that allowed them to accept the mission — about 280 km through the air and against a headwind.

Flight nurse Jenn Fosty and flight paramedic Troy Pauls prepared for a trauma call and took advantage of some good luck.

“It was our blood exchange day,” said Fosty, citing the STARS standard of carrying four units of O-negative blood that is swapped out every few days. “We had extra blood at the base, so we ended up loading six units of blood.”

Sean would eventually need every drop, but they had to reach him first.

“Compared to a lot of missions, this one was much more challenging,” said Dash, recalling weather just within operating limits. “It was going to be tough both on the aviation side and the medical side.”

Under STARS’ standard two-pilot crew , he was the mission’s safety pilot, focusing on logistical essentials, while Harding’s primary focus was on flying the aircraft.

“Honestly, the thought of turning around crossed my mind every minute for about 24 minutes as we transited the area,” said Harding. “But the thought of the clear air that was forecast and actually occurring to the west of where we were kept us going.”

After almost two hours, including a fuel stop, they finally arrived.

“I remember the helicopter coming in and looking at it, thinking, ‘This is our answer,’” said Mindy. “‘This is what’s going to hold our family together.’”  

As the helicopter descended, Sean went into cardiac arrest. But the local medical team was able to resuscitate him.

“When we initially walked in, I didn’t think we were going to take Sean out of the door that day because his injuries were so severe,” said Fosty. “He had two collapsed lungs; it was affecting his heart, which caused him likely to arrest in the first place. And when we walked in, we were concerned that was going to happen again.”

As the STARS crew worked side by side with local practitioners, Mindy looked out of a hospital window and saw two of their kids playing happily in the schoolyard across an open field.

“And I just thought, ‘They have no idea,’” she said. “I couldn’t process the fact that I’m watching my kids enjoy what could be the last moment of their childhood, that they know.”

However, teamwork throughout that small emergency room stabilized Sean enough to transfer him into the helicopter for the 70-minute tailwind flight.

“I remember that helicopter lifting off and thinking, ‘That is the most precious cargo that they will ever have,’” said Mindy.

Life-saving work continued in the air.

“The trip back was busy,” said Fosty. “My hands were constantly moving. We were constantly trying to manage both his blood pressure and his oxygen levels with our ventilator, along with blood and many other medications to help keep his blood pressure up.”

Poor weather was still a threat, though. They had just enough room to safely fly below icy conditions above, but it was anyone’s guess whether that narrow sliver of sky would last. A ground ambulance crew was readied just in case STARS had to land early.

“When the pilots called to the back and said we may need to land, my heart sank and I didn’t know if he would survive,” said Fosty. “I was worried about the movement from our stretcher to the EMS stretcher.”

Her partner was on the same page.

“I impolitely said that this patient would not survive if we had to stop,” said Pauls.

Graciously, though, the weather cleared, and the STARS helicopter was able to reach the destination.

“This was a very challenging mission because not only were we fighting to keep Sean alive, but the pilots up front were also fighting to get us back to the hospital,” said Fosty.

“This mission was successful because there was a lot of teamwork involved all around,” said Dash, citing numerous response partners involved at all stages of the event.

“This is the reason why I joined STARS. It makes me feel good to be able to say that we were there that day to help this patient, and we were able to use all of our skills to make this happen.”

Sean would go on to receive two titanium ribs and a chest plate, as well as having five vertebrae fused together.

Three weeks after his accident, Sean surprised everyone by taking his first steps. He would leave the hospital just over a week later.

“There aren’t really words in the English language that can portray how thankful and how appreciative I am,” said Mindy. “Not only myself, but my children, our entire family — everybody that Sean has ever interacted with — how vital their role was that day to just keeping our lives together. It had the chance to explode our little bubble. Everything we’ve ever known.”

Less than half a year later, Sean dropped by the STARS base and surprised Dash, a member of his crew who happened to be on duty that day.

“It’s a great feeling to get a patient like this safely to the hospital and, months later, to see this patient walk into the hangar under his own power, not knowing if he ever would have made it, and knowing you had a part in it,” said Dash.

Five months later, Sean and his family met the entire crew that was part of his mission. Tearful hugs and smiles rippled through the hangar before the Rickards family stood in front of all four crew members as Sean spoke from the heart.

“It means so much,” he told them, his young daughter gripping him tightly. “You guys have given my family back. You don’t realize how fragile life is until you have a scare like this. You take every day for granted. You get up, put in a full day, do everything that you can, expecting that you’ll be coming home. I had no idea that day it would change my life forever. You guys brought me back from everything being gone.”