In case of a fire, you have 30 seconds before the chopper explodes.

'Make sure you keep your headset on,' Candy said, 'because even 15 minutes of cumulative helicopter sound exposure has been shown to cause hearing loss.'

This was yesterday morning. Candy the hard-edged flight nurse was going through my safety debriefing before my day-long ride-along with LifeLinks, the helicopter ambulance service that transports critically ill patients from rural areas to better-equipped large urban hospitals. This involved me getting up at 4:45 am, driving the 1 hour to the tiny hamlet of New Richmond, Wisconsin, and then getting lost and showing up to the unmarked hangar half an hour late because said tiny hamlet in Wisconsin unbelievably has two Fourth Streets, one of which, I discovered, does in fact NOT intersect with county road CC. My late arrival was immediately followed by my admission that no, I did not bring anything warmer or bluer to wear, and that no, I did not have gloves, at which point I was instructed to get on the scale and prove that I weighed less than their 225 lb limit. Which, fortunately, I did.

Once we had all those formalities out of the way, I settled in to my day with the flight team, which consisted of two nurses, one helicopter pilot, and the maintenance guy who spent most of the morning trying to figure out the cause of the pesky blade wobbling that everyone was complaining about the day before. They were all incredibly nice and incredibly good at their jobs. After helping them go through the entire inventory of medications and supplies in the helicopter, I was given my safety debriefing. Candy continued:

- The pilot is in charge. Every move you make needs to be cleared by him.
- When in front do not touch the pedals. The pilot will get very mad at you.
- Do not lean on the windows. They serve as detachable fire exits. Last year somebody broke the front window and it cost $30,000 to repair.
- If there is a hard landing, sit up as straight as you can. The downward impact will hopefully cause vertebral compression fractures instead of severing your spinal cord.
- In the case of a crash landing, whoever has survived will meet up in the direction of 12 noon from the nose of the chopper.
- In the case of a fire, just get out, duck, and run. You have 30 seconds.
- In the case of a fire, do not use the fire extinguisher while in air. It is made of halon and will suck up all the oxygen in the cabin.
- In the case of an emergency, you can attempt to rescue the patient if they are a baby or small child. Otherwise, just leave them. Its every man for themselves.
- Duck if you are walking in front of the nose; the upper blades are flexible and can dip down as low as four feet off the ground.
- Do not walk anywhere near the back end of the helicopter. The smaller rear propeller spins four times faster than the upper one – and is invisible. {pause} It has happened.

Needless to say, I handled this information with calm composure while silently reeling inside, images of a blood-splattered Indiana Jones playing on repeat inside my head. With thinly veiled composure, I tried to ask oh so casually if she had ever been involved in any crash landings. 'Oh yeah,' Candy said, looking me straight in the eye. 'This is serious.'

A couple hours later, when the alarm went off alerting the team to a critical transport, I found myself strapped in to the back seat of the helicopter, a large headset protecting my delicate little cochlear hair cells, thinking about what it would be like to spiral out of control in a flaming helicopter, sitting up straight in the hopes of mere lifetime debilitation, and then running from the burning wreckage straight into the invisible propeller blender of death. But once I felt us lift easily off the ground, these morbid thoughts were quickly replaced by awe and exhilaration at the sight of the beautiful lush Midwestern farm-scape that was flowing beneath me. Flying is amazing. Amazing. Wow.

But my own personal rejoicing at the miracle of flight was tempered somewhat by the gravity of our mission. We were transporting a seriously injured kid who had been attempting Jackass-style BMX stunts. Once we bundled up our cargo and took off from the rural Wisconsin hospital, the flight nurses went to work. In a flurry of activity and tubing, they hooked up IVs and oxygen, administered medication, prepared suction, attached the monitor... sitting at the patient's feet, I helped by replacing the oxygen tube when it fell out. Saving lives - its what I do. Underneath us, cornfields were intersected by knobby oak groves, a flock of ducks reposed on a small marshy lake, dirt county roads turned to small highways and farmland gave way to the barren flat-tops of suburban company headquarters. Suddenly we were in Minneapolis, circling around the top of a tall hospital helipad. And without tv-style drama or teams of frantic doctors sprinting to meet us, we delivered up our charge to his fate.

They let me sit up front on the way back (after promising not to touch the pedals). Its funny how the downtowns of major metropolitan areas look so dinky and gray from a bird's view. I saw the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, where days before I had gorged myself on mini donuts and funnel cake (and a pickle on a stick). I swooped over my old boathouse on the Mississippi river. I spilled scalding hot water all over the floor and myself at the downtown St. Paul airport. And then I was back in farm country, weighing the pluses and minuses of dropping out of medical school to pursue a career in helicopter piloting.

And the crazy part is that that evening, I pretty much went directly from the emergency helipad in Wisconsin to my 10 year high school reunion. I put on a name tag, and walked sheepishly into a roomful of vaguely familiar people, saw some friends who I have't talked to in literally one decade (as incomprehensible as that amount of time is), took liberal advantage of the bar and the Central High School Class of '96 sheet cake, and found myself repeating over and over again, 'So what are YOU up to?' in a weird high-pitched voice. And, as people where handing out business cards and claiming to have not recognized me, I kept thinking to myself 'I just spent the day rescuing people in a helicopter and SAVING LIVES. Sorry, what did you say you were up to again?'