MAF Lesotho is quite unique in the MAF world with our system for being on-call for medical emergencies. Each weekend a pilot is on-call, and then gets the next Friday off to compensate for rest days. We rotate through pilots, and so depending on how many pilots we have determines on how often you have a weekend on-call. At the moment we have 3 pilots on call, so every third weekend is my turn.
Being on-call on the weekend is a strange feeling. While we can be at home and do things with family or friends, we also want to be ready and able to get to the airport reasonably quickly. There’s a bit of tension, wondering if the phone will ring as soon as I start a house project. It’s enjoyable, but isn’t really a restful feeling. My main hope when I am on-call is that I don’t get called out during the Formula 1 race that our family has come to structure our weekends around!
On the long Easter weekend, I was on-call for the 4 days (Easter Friday until Monday). We struggled with weather the week leading up to Easter, and were behind on our flights. At the end of Thursday it was clear that we were not going to get all our planned flights done, and so I planned to do a flight early Friday morning so that the passengers in the mountains didn’t have to wait until our next scheduled flight the following Tuesday.
On Friday morning, I went to work and got going pretty early to drop off a load of medicine, and then collect 3 passengers. A simple 2-stop flight that should take around 2 and a half hours. The weather was good, and it was a great day to be out.
On the way back to base with the passengers, I received a message from our flight follower to say that there was a possible emergency flight, or “Code 1” due to a bus accident in one of the main towns in Lesotho, Qachas Nek, down on the southeastern border.
By the time I landed at base, the flight was confirmed. We didn’t have much info, other than I should prepare for multiple patients who needed to be flown from the Qachas Nek hospital to Maseru. They also advised me to take 2 stretchers, which is pretty uncommon.
I refueled and got going to Qachas Nek. Upon landing I was met by two vehicles and a handful of medical staff. This is pretty rare as patients are usually just dropped off accompanied by one nurse.
I was still gathering information about how many patients there were, and was asked if I could take 4 plus a nurse, two of whom needed stretchers. This was impossible, as two stretchers take up the entire rear loading area in our small Cessna 206’s. It was quickly becoming clear that I would be coming back here later for another load.
I loaded up the 2 stretcher patients, and had the nurse in the front co-pilot seat, which is common when we need one extra spot.
I flew the 45 minutes to Maseru, unloaded into the waiting ambulance, restocked medical supplies and fuel, and headed back to Qachas Nek.
This time I loaded up 5 passengers. 4 were patients and one was a parent. It seemed like with this load, it would be the most critical patients that had been transferred, and the Qachas Nek hospital would be handling the less critical ones locally.
I flew this load of passengers back to Maseru, by which time it was close to 3pm.
What started as an easy day for one flight had turned into a full day with lots of loading, unloading, refueling and quick turn arounds. When we are on-call like this, we do a lot of that stuff ourselves, as our normal ground crew is on holiday or off for the weekend. So these kind of days really make me appreciate the amount of work they do to ease the load for the pilots.
The day was very successful, and I was grateful that we were well-equipped and ready, and that the weather was favorable, for us to be able to help where needed.
Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was quiet. But unfortunately due to the Easter holiday, there was no F1 race to enjoy!
