STAT Air First in County to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine

The Valley County Health Department Vaccinated 10 members of the Northeast Montana STAT Air ambulance service against the coronavirus on Dec. 23 as part of an effort to get the COVID-19 vaccine to as many frontline healthcare workers as possible in the coming weeks.

The ambulance service was the first agency in the county to get the first of two installments of the Moderna vaccine. The agency will receive another 10 doses, for a total of 20, as part of the first wave of vaccines for health care workers. The hospital is set to receive 170 doses and the remaining 10 doses are allocated for area ground-ambulance services.

STAT Air executive director, Clay Berger, described the vaccine as just another plate of armor to protect their employees, their families and their patients. He said they have managed to avoid any work-related infections of staff or patients during the pandemic despite having flown over 120 COVID-positive patients across the region.

Berger credited strict personal protective equipment and sanitation efforts for the success in preventing infections. He added that just because the staff is inoculated against the virus that does not mean the service will lessen PPE or sanitation requirements as long as the pandemic continues.

"We haven't had any employee to date get infected from a patient," said Berger. "And we've flown over 120 COVID patients already, and half of those were probably on ventilators, so higher risk COVID patients."

Berger said the ambulance service has had four COVID exposures, but those occurred in social settings and not at work.

To keep the service going, STAT Air has to maintain a certain level of staff in order to fly. They also want to prevent the spread of COVID to family members and noninfected patients.

Berger explained in detail the steps the agency has gone through to prevent the spread of infection. For one, they treat COVID-19 like hazardous material by constantly disinfecting airplanes and keeping crew in full PPE (Tyvek suits and N95 respirators) regardless of whether the patient is COVID-19 positive or not.

Berger credits his staff's discipline with control measures even while being sympathetic to the fact that 24 hour a day vigilance is hard to accomplish.

"That's why we've trained that this is hazardous material," he said. "And you don't get a second chance with hazardous material."

When the crew delivers a patient to the hospital, the pilot sprays a viricide across the plane while the patient is being taken to the hospital. Then they decontaminate the crew and equipment, and the flight can fly home "clean" without PPE. Once they return, the plane is then sprayed with an electrostatic sprayer that sanitizes every inch of surface in less than three minutes.

The sprayer works by giving the liquid a positive charge, so it is attracted to any surface that is not already covered in charged disinfectant effectively leaving no spot untouched by the viricide.

"In fact, it even goes up under the chairs," he explained, "so in a matter of two to three minutes this whole plane is totally disinfected."

The STAT Air crews will receive the second round of the vaccine within 28 days of the first dose. After that, they have a 94 percent chance of developing antibodies to the disease. For Berger, that means the crews can have a level of confidence that they are safe, but that, combined with PPE and decontamination, their families are safe as well.

"I put them in Tyvek, which is that coverall thing, [because] they feel more comfortable in that," said Berger. "But when they leave the hospital, and the pilot is finished spraying the plane they step out of that and they feel clean."

Berger said it is a big deal for the crews to have that feeling that they are clean and that what they are doing works to prevent the spread of the disease especially to family members and households.

"I would feel bad if an employee got it or if a patient contracted it from us," he said. "But I would feel worse if our employee went home and contaminated their household."