Always Ageless w Valerie V November 17 2025 Guest Bob Bacheler

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon, friends. This is Valerie vanders Over and you
are listening to Always Ageless, where we believe that life
does not come with an expiration date. If you're driving
down the freeway right now, maybe headed home from work
or on your way to see your family, or you're
listening to us from your home or office, I want
you to lean in for this one, especially if you've

(00:20):
ever worried about an aging parent or older adult in
your family, a loved one who needed help getting from
here to there. Today's show is about something most people
don't even know exists. I didn't know, and honestly, it
can be life changing, especially in today's world in navigation.
As imagine this, Your mom lives across the country, she's

(00:43):
had a healthcare or it's not doing as being as
strong as she used to be, and she really can't
travel safely alone. But you're working, you've got kids, and
you've thought of trying to get her on a plane.
Manage your medications, manage the security line at the air handle.
All the what ifs a thirty five thousand feet and
that keeps you up at night sound familiar. My guest

(01:06):
today is someone who steps into those exact moments, he
will be your hero. His name is doctor Bob Batchelor,
and he's the managing director of a company called Flying Angels.
Sounds good already, doesn't it. They don't fly private jets,
they use regular commercial airlines. But with a critical care

(01:26):
flight nurse by your loved one side bedside to bedside,
door to door, it's like having a guardian angel in
scrubs whose job it is to get your person from
point A to point b Bob has more letters after
his name than most of us have on our license plates.
He's a doctor of Nursing Practice, a certified flight nurse,

(01:51):
a critical care nurse, and a certified dementia practitioner just
for a few translation. He's been there, seeing a lot,
done it, and he knows how to keep people safe
and calm in the air. We're going to talk about
Flying Angels, what it actually does, real life stories from
the sky, and what families should consider when using a

(02:13):
service like this, along with some travel tips for anyone
helping an older adult or medically fragile loved one navigate
airports and airlines. And we all could use those tips.
So don't go anywhere if you love someone who may
need help traveling now or in the future. This conversation
might be exactly what you need, so stay with us.

(02:36):
We are right here with doctor Bob Bachelor from Flying Angels. Welcome,
Bob Bachelor. I have been wanting you on our show
for a very long time. The first time I met
you at a CSA conference, I said, oh, you would
be a great guest on my show. I said, oh,
I hope you would do it, and I've waited over
a year to ask you. So thank you very much
for joining us.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Valerie, thank you very much. It's actually it's actually my pleasure,
and I'm a fan of the podcast, so you know,
to me, it's a great it's a great pleasure to
be here and talk to your guests and have a
conversation with you. So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, thank you very much. Before we get into your
impressive alphabet of credentials, how do you usually introduce yourself
to families who are meeting you for the first time,
either on the phone or in person.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, usually I'm just introducing myself as Bob. That seems
to be the way to go. I try not to
stand on formalities.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Was there a moment or a particular patient that made
you say this service is needed, it has to exist,
and pushed you into starting flying Angels.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Absolutely. So I brief brief history, if I may so.
I've been a nurse for just over thirty years now
and about eight and I spent most of my time
in the beginning doing what the term is dude nurses do.
I started my career in the trauma ICU and the

(04:02):
burn units and all those adrenaline pact places in the
hospital that you really don't want to ever see, but
when you need are there. So that's where I spent
the first ten years of my career. And a friend
of mine asked me if I would help transport his
grandfather from Florida up to up to Toronto. And his

(04:25):
grandfather had some dementia and was an honorary old cuss
and didn't get along with anybody, so they had no
idea how they were going to do it. And I said, well,
you know, I'm a nurse. I want to be a
flight nurse. All dude nurses want to be a flight nurse.
And I said, sure, I'll go do it. So I
flew down to a Florida and I met him and

(04:48):
he was an honorary old cuss. But he was willing
to go. So we got him to the airport and
I got him on a plane and we got first
class tickets for him, which I'll say, what first time
I had ever sat in first class in my life,
and it was it was really so far, so good.
And I'm sitting there halfway through the flight. Everything's going fine.
I'm thinking this great, I'm reading Skymall. I'm going to

(05:09):
date myself on that one, obviously, and he stands up
and says, help, help, I'm being kidnapped. I'm being kidnapped.
So I did what any dude nurse would do. I
had a sedative ready to go. I injected him right
through his pant leg. He went to sleep. He sat
down and I said, hey, you know, Grandpa just had

(05:30):
a bad dream. He's fine, Everything's okay, and we continue
on the flight. Now, this was not long after nine
to eleven, so nobody had a sense of humor on
airplanes at this point. But it all worked out. He
got where he needed to go. I said, you know what,
this is what I want to do for the rest
of my career, and the and the rest is history.
Since that point, we've grown from my transporting this, you know,

(05:55):
you know curmudgeon grandfather to We now have doctors and
nurse verses all over the country who fly with people
one of the commercial airlines. As a matter of fact,
I think you did a better job of explaining what
we do than I ever do myself.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
I don't know. Well, I'll give you my intro to
take with you, but I was impressed when I first
met you. And this has now been two years ago,
but I have to ask you, let's go back a
little bit. Did you have a career or an interest
in flying. Were you a pilot or any kind of
an air connected.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
So as a dude nurse, you know in the trauma
and burn and everything else, I very much wanted to
be a flight nurse. That was really a goal of mine.
The disadvantage that I had. The biggest disadvantage, I think
was the fact that I lived here in Philadelphia and
I was a single dad with three kids at home,

(06:48):
so it was one of those I wasn't going to move.
There aren't that many positions for flight nurses in the
major metropolitan areas, just because you have so many hot
spittals in such close proximity there's really not the need
to fly patients on helicopters remotely. If you live in Fargo,

(07:08):
North Dakota or in some of these more remote regions,
there's a lot more opportunities in programs. So you know that.
I mean, it's just a it's a numbers game. I mean,
you know, you could have ten thousand incredibly qualified nurses,
but if you only have you know, ten positions, it's
going to be very, very difficult. So that wasn't going

(07:29):
to work. But the advantage that I did have is
that I lived fifteen minutes from Philadelphia International Airport, So
you know, that's kind of what gave me the idea
that this would work. Plus, I did love the movie Airplane,
and I think it's one of the funniest movies of
all time, and I think if everybody remembers that movie,

(07:50):
there is a scene where they're transporting the young girl
to the Mayo clinic and any number of jokes about
that happened. So I said, well, this will work, we
can we can do this, and you know, we can
fly patients on commercial airlines.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Sure why not write And what was your career before
you entered nursing or was that your first career. I was.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I was a serial entrepreneur in my twenties, and I think,
as any good serial entrepreneur, I'll tell you that involves
a lot of failure. So when my wife and I
at the time decided that we were going to have
we're going to get married, and we're going to have kids,

(08:33):
you know, I kind of realized that, you know, I
need to have something I can fall back on just
in the event that, you know, something I'm doing doesn't
work out, and the need to provide for my family.
So I kind of went to nursing school more as
an afterthought than anything else. I really didn't think that
I would make a career out of out of nursing.

(08:55):
There were one hundred and forty five women in my
class and five guys in my nursing class at Community
College of Philadelphia. I'll give a shout out to them.
I was very happy, but again, went through the program,
did not think that it was something that I was
going to make a career out of. Came out of that,
wound up getting a job in a trauma ICU here

(09:17):
in Philadelphia, and I fell in love with the profession.
I fell in love with the career, and I said,
this is what I want to do now. The entrepreneur
in me kind of pushed me into the independent contracting
aspect of nursing, where I would work at different hospitals
on contract, and I kind of kid it became a

(09:38):
serial monogamy, whereas I was at the University of Pennsylvania
for four and a half years, six weeks at a time,
and at the time they would come out with a
new schedule, they say, Bob, are you signing up for time?
And I said, well, are you throwing me out? And
they said no, and I said, well, then I'm signing
it for time. So I was here at this at
the University of Pennsylvania for four and a half years

(10:00):
own contract. People didn't realize that I was an independent contractor.
My badge had a red stripe on it, which is
what they used to designate contractors, and people would often
ask me, Bob, what's the red stripe on your badge for?
And I would tell them, if I kill one more patient,
I'm out of here.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So, yeah, well you got away with that for four
and a half years, right, I did.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
So I had the great pleasure to work in many
of the ICUs and the trauma units. You know, here
in Philadelphia, I worked night shift. I loved I loved
working Friday nights and the joy of working a nice
shift as a nurse. I got to spend time with
my kids as they were growing. As a matter of fact,

(10:43):
I would go on a lot of the field trips
that my kids win. One and one of the other
dads who would go in these field trips was in
the Philadelphia prison system. He was a prison guard. So
the running joke that we had with everybody is, you know,
we're the two people you do not want to see
it work.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
This is true. You know, I was waiting for your
punchline on that. Yeah, that's that's quite a combination. Yeah,
that's interesting. That's interesting. Although, you know, I met a
trauma doctor at once on a whatever and he said,
the great thing about that is people are almost dead.
I mean, nobody sues you because nobody sues you for
saving their life at that point. So he thought that

(11:21):
was a good position to be in for that reason.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I don't know, And if somebody can complain about something,
they don't need to be where you are. That's you know,
when you're when you're in the ICU, you know, the
you know patients are, they're heavily sedated, they're medicated, their
own ventilators. You walk in the room and you see,
you know, fifteen pumps and you're like, okay, there's another
day at work, you know. But if the person can complain,

(11:45):
then they don't need to be there and they can
go to someplace lesson.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
I'm going to transfer them out, absolutely exactly, I have
to do that. I'm sitting here listening to this already
and we're just at the beginning of our time together,
and I'm actually feeling a little bit of envy. I
grew up wanting to be a missionary nurse in Africa,
and I started a candy striper's group in our local
hospital in this little town in northern Indiana, and that's

(12:07):
all I ever wanted to be. And then when something
happened that it wasn't going to work out for that,
I had to find another plan B, which I didn't
have at the time. Then I went into real estate
and that's been my entire career where I help people
in a different way and take some of the same
skills I think, but so I love it.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah. One of the recurring themes of your guests is
that I think you know, life happens, you know, while
you're making other plans, and you know you need to
be able to adjust and say, Okay, well this isn't
what I was planning on doing, but this is what
I'm going to do now, and you make the best
of it. And I think it really makes for an
exciting and interesting life.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yes, And certainly in dealing with older people and with
people who are who aren't old, but who have some
illness or something that keeps them from living their life
the way they prefer it to be, I think that
taking on the challenge of helping them is just as
just an incredible, incredible value that we we like to

(13:07):
bring out to people and help people and and there,
and people need that, whether they realize it all the
time or matter whether they want it, Like your grandfather
or not. I can imagine flying with him in that
situation right after nine to eleven. That probably was not
a great a great situation, but obviously you handled it well.
So let me ask you a question. So, what are

(13:29):
the kinds of situations that drive most people to call
flying angels? Paying a picture of what's actually happening in
that family's life at the time.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
There's any there's any number of scenarios that we come
in in a in a in a regular in the
course of a day. Probably the most common scenario is
the family have an elderly family member, you know who
is is either living alone or they're you know, they're
in an assisted facility of some type. Something something has happened,

(14:01):
something changed. Maybe it was you know, a death of
a you know, a death of a spouse. Maybe it
was a fall with broken hip where you know, the
person was living independently for many, many years alone. And
then you know, the family realizes, Okay, you know, mom
just cannot live you know, on her own in Florida,

(14:22):
where she's lived for the last twenty years, and we
want to move her to Minneapolis or San Francisco or
you know, I'm more in California where you know, they
have family, clothes and they have support system and loved ones.
But then the question is how do you get them there?
You know, families, you know, they have their own lives

(14:42):
to live, they have they have their children, they have jobs.
You know, many, very few people have the option to
just pick up fly across the country and fly with
somebody back. And also it can be a very very
intimidating process. There's really a lot that goes in to
flying somebody across the country, the logistics that people don't

(15:05):
think of, you know, So right now, you know, we've
had some issues with airports canceling flights, you know, be
it for weather, be it for staffing shortage, be it
for tsa shortage, be it for air traffic controllers. You know,
it's a very very dynamic environment that people often want
to find an expert that they can rely with. So

(15:28):
what would happen is a family would reach out to
us and say, hey, you know, my mom was living alone,
she broke her hip or had something else happen, and
she's now in a rehabilitation hospital and we want to
fly her across the country. We've made arrangements at a
very nice nursing home here and we just want to
bring her out here. And from that point forward, we

(15:51):
pretty much take care of everything bedside the bedside. We'll
do all the logistics and will coordinate with the sending facility,
will make we have an in else travel agency that
will make all the flight arrangements, will fly. We're going
to fly our folks, first class domestically, business class internationally,
and I can talk about some business some international scenarios

(16:12):
as well. But what will happen is we'll send one
of our flight nurses out and again all of our team,
as you mentioned, our critical care trained registered flight nurses.
The vast majority of our team have been nurses for
twenty years. Most of these are kind of kind of
second career folks, if you will, where you know they've
worked in the hospital for many, many years and they

(16:33):
just want to do something different. So our nurse will
go out, We'll meet with the client at the facility,
we'll make arrangements to get them from where they are
to the airport. The majority of our clients have mobility impairments,
very very few are walking, so you know, we have
all kinds of specially equipment, specially wheelchairs and specially transfers,

(16:56):
things that we can use to move somebody. We'll put
them in a wheelchair van, take them to the airport,
fly in first class from where they need to go
to where they're going to, and then take them in
a wheelchair van to where they need to go. So
it's bedside to bedside and all this time, not only

(17:17):
they're under the care of a critical care trained registered
flight nurse that can deal with any any potential complications. Again,
I often say that our mission here is to prevent emergencies,
not necessarily just respond to them. But also they're traveling
with somebody who is really an expert in traveling. You know,
I mentioned that we have a full service in house

(17:39):
travel agency, you know, that can be proactive in the
event that there's going to be a weather delay. You know,
if we know there's going to be a storm coming through,
we may wind up changing the flight somewhere else once
the person's at the airport. You know, our nurses fly
for a living. I mean they really they're experts in
getting through airports. They are experts in dealing with the TA, say,

(18:01):
dealing with identification, those kinds of things, uh, dealing with
the airline crew, getting somebody on and off an aircraft.
So you're traveling with somebody who not only has medical expertise,
but also has expertise in traveling. So that's the best
way to get somebody from point A to point B.

(18:21):
We also do we do repatriation of foreign nationals. You
have somebody who may be here in this country and
you know documented or not, but they find themselves in
the healthcare system. But you mentioned that you wanted to
be a missionary in Africa. Well, you know, we go

(18:41):
there a lot. We often get calls from hospitals saying, hey,
we have somebody in our hospital. You know, they were
healthy up until a few months ago, when you know,
something happened. Any number of myriad conditions happened, and you know,
they need to get back to Botswana, okay, And they're thinking, well,
how in the world are they going to do that.

(19:03):
Well they call us and they say, okay, well we've
been there three times in the last couple of months,
so you know, for us, it's it's pretty straightforward, you know.
So we have resources to get the person, you know
again to the airport. We're gonna fly in on a
commercial airline. Uh you know, we know, okay, we'll probably
going to fly through Johannesburg. You know, if we're flying

(19:24):
into South into South Africa, we're going to fly through Ethiopia.
If we're flying into the northern part of Africa, easy, easy, pecy.
Same thing with India. We actually have some terrific contacts
with the Indian diaspora. Here in the United States, and
there are many cases where somebody may have a terminal
illness and you know they're here working, you know, but

(19:48):
they they want to spend their last time, uh, you know,
being close to family in India where they you know,
where they grew up. And these can these can be
unfortunately some sick people. When you have these terminal illness,
is that coming quickly?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
So you know, it's all these many reasons why someone
needs your services. It's pretty interesting. So you may everybody's
heard that I have a mom who's hundred and six.
I'm thinking, oh, you know, we should take her to
see my brother, you know, only in Alabama. I said,
Oh my gosh. I thought of getting in the airport,
in the line through TSA, right onto the airplane on

(20:22):
and off. Everybody's going to have to wait for mom
to get on and off. And then I think maybe
I'm not quite up to that. But I'm sitting here thinking, well,
maybe I'll just have to call flying Angels.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
I'll be that would be a good call.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
To me, be a good call. So tell us how
does your specific training as a certified dementia practitioner help
you when you're moving someone who may be confused, anxious,
resistant to change. Sounds kind of like the Grandpa situation
you were in.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Well, yes, and I want to go back to that,
to the Grandpa situation. You know, sedating somebody is never
ever our first course of action. That's that's always just
an absolute emergency backup, you know that we want to
do at the end. And you know, some of our
some of our team do incredible work with dementia patients.

(21:14):
You know, personally, I will freely admit that, you know,
I would much rather deal with a three hundred pound
quadriplegic on a plane, you know, than that with then
with somebody who has you know, has dementia. But at
the same time, some of our team just absolutely love
transporting to dementia patients. And they really are about twenty
to twenty five percent of the patients that we transport

(21:36):
in a year. So you know, there's all the strategies
that we use, you know, keeping them distracted, you know,
keeping you know, keeping them oriented to their reality. You know,
you're you're not imposing your reality on them. You know,
they may think they're they're going for a visit, they
may think they're going somewhere for lunch. You know, we're

(21:57):
not going to impose our reality on them. You know,
our nurses you know, will often bring activity boards. You know,
we're going to find out what is it that the
person likes to do. You know, if somebody is you know,
has been a photographer, where lives photo albums, well, you
know we're going to build a foot We're gonna put
together a photo album while they're on that flight. Uh,
you know, to keep them occupied, keep them focused on

(22:19):
on what they're doing. We I mentioned earlier we're flying
our patients in first class. This is really important when
you're dealing with somebody who has dementia, only because you
identified all the reasons that flying can be stressful, and
the time at the airport is definitely part of that.

(22:40):
You know, it can be a crowded environment. Security can
be stressful, the gate can be crowded. You know. The
last thing you want to do is take somebody down
a jet bridge and then turn right into the aircraft
and walk down a long metal tube. You know, clauster
phobia is going to going to get to anybody. So
what we're doing is we're going to be the first

(23:01):
ones to board the aircraft. So we're just walking down
a hallway, we're turning right onto the plane and we're
sitting down. That's it. And then we're going to keep
them occupied with whatever it is, an activity, board, music, video, whatever,
whatever keeps them calm and distracted.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
But then it must be challenging for them and then
for you when all these people get on the plane
around them, right and there's all this activity of people
they don't know or does that not bother them?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
If you can keep them focused on something else, they're
probably not going they're probably not going to notice it
as much. Again, the key is, you know, with dementia folks,
what we found is you know, keeping them getting them
on the plane, first, getting them to sit down, you know,
once they're sitting down, and again then providing whatever it
is that you're going to use for them. You know

(23:55):
whether or not it's going to be you know, pictures,
photo albums that they can look at, you know, music,
you know, video, wanna want to on a screen? You
know whatever that whatever you can get them to focus
on is going to be the key.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
But is it a problem when it's on a long flight,
If you're flying them from California to Florida, it's a
long time.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
You know. It's funny you mentioned that, you know, for
for us, you know, a long time is a thirty
hour flight to India. You know, yeah, yeah, long, long
is long. It's very relative generally, not necessarily, you know,
but there's a lot of details that you want to
figure out in advance. You know, does this person uh

(24:36):
you know, are they more focused in the morning, are
they more focused in the afternoon? You know, are you
going to do a night flight for them so they
can sleep or do they have do they have sundowners
where you certainly don't want to take them, you know,
on a on a red eye flight. Uh. And and
there is also you know, the option of medication, uh,
you know, to keep them kind of calm and you know,

(24:59):
and not not sedated, but yet at the same time,
you know, maybe more medicated, you know than they would
be normally. So you know, they are they are somewhat drowsy.
One of the things I do kind of stress is
you can't drag somebody kicking and screaming, you know, onto
an aircraft. And it's it's very difficult to sedate somebody

(25:19):
enough you know where they're just asleep. You know that
you know, they're seeing exactly, so you know, you have
to you have to find that you know, happy balance
of you know again, medication distraction. It's it's a holistic
it's a holistic approach, uh, you know, to to the patient.
And again, you know, we have some incredible nurses on

(25:42):
the team that you know, they're the kind of people
they walk into a room and everybody loves them. I
mean they'll walk into they'll walk in and meet with
the patient and you know, they're they're best friends, you know,
in five minutes. And this is also one of the
reasons that our nurses are also meeting the patients, you know,
the day before. You know, we never want a patient
to meet you know, a nurse. You know, Okay, we're

(26:04):
going to pick them up and then go to the airport.
So sometimes our nurses will go meet with the patient
the day before they fly and they're spending you know,
a couple hours you know, with them, you know, learning.
You know, we're talking to the family. What does what
does mom like? What does mom not like? What topics
does mom like? What? You know, what subjects should be
absolutely avoid? You know, does mom love you know, love

(26:26):
stuffed animals? You know, well, bring some stuffed animals along.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
So that was going to be one of my questions
is logistically, so what happens. I make a call with
you and I say, Bob, I've got this situation. So
then what happens from A to B. You take down
my information and.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
And from there we're going to reach out to the providers.
You know, if if mom's in a facility, we're going
to coordinate with the doctors and nurses and physical therapists
there to make sure that we come up with a
complete plan. Again, you know, I was mentioning the ground transport.
You know, uh, you know what kind of ground, what
kind of equipment do we need to bring? You know what?

(27:05):
And again we're going to talk to the therapists at
the facilities, you know, specifically with the MENSHA patients, you know,
what is it that that keeps them calm? But basically
it's coming up with a complete plan and then we'll
present that to the family and say, okay, this is
this is what we're going to do. You know a
lot of times, you know, you talk about long flights. Well,
you know, do we want to fight with the connection

(27:27):
or are we better off say, let's do a couple
hour ground transport, you know in Florida. You know, do
you want to take somebody, say from Tampa, you know,
to Orlando, if you can get them on a NonStop
flight from Orlando to where they need to go, versus
doing doing a connection somewhere. Now, connections sometimes are unavoidable
when you're dealing with you know, certain routing. But you know,
the goal is always to go with a non stop.

(27:49):
But we'll present this to the family and then say
this is this is what we're gonna this is our plan,
and the family says, okay, let's go. Let's do it.
And then we go into the scenario where you know,
we send our nurse out and nurse you know, meets
with mom and then the next day flies with her
to where she needs to go. And beds we take
our bedside the bedside, and that's where you do.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
But so let me ask you a question. Though you've
mentioned a couple of times taking equipment with you, so
there must be times maybe let me change that, let
me rephrase this to a question. So are there times
when you take equipment with you that you don't need
at the end destination? And then what do you do
with it, or do you only take things that like

(28:29):
their wheelchair, which then they will use when they get there.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
The majority of the patients we're transporting, we're transporting in
our wheelchairs. Now, if somebody already has a wheelchair, you know,
we'll certainly will certainly bring those, you know, some of
our spinal cord injury patients we transport. We do a
lot of traumatic brain injury and stroke patients for the
centers of excellence around the country. You know, have maybe
electric wheelchairs and they want to take those, so we'll

(28:56):
bring those along. But in the vast majority scenario, we
have custom reclining wheelchairs that we use to make sure
that we can get somebody, you know, to the airport comfortably.
We really, you know, if somebody's mobility impaired, we want
to transfer them as few times as we possibly can.
Every time you're transferring somebody, you know, there's a risk

(29:18):
of a fall and something going on, which again I
kind of mentioned, we do wheelchair vans a lot, so
this way we can transfer somebody into our custom reclining wheelchairs,
and all of our wheelchairs, you know, lie back and recline,
so somebody's not sitting bolt upright for you know, a
number of hours. You mentioned a six hour flight, Well
that's six hour flight. You know, may have you know,

(29:38):
three hours of ground time, you know at at the beginning,
you know where you know, let's say it's going to
take an hour to get to the airport, and you're
getting up to the airport at least two hours before
the flight as a matter of fact, you know, just
given you know some of the delays experiencing lately, you know,
we may want to get to the airport, you know,
two and a half, maybe even three hours for the airport,

(30:01):
and then you know the person is you know, is
sitting in a wheelchair. Now, our wheelchairs are much more
comfortable than the ones you're gonna find at the airport. Again,
they reclined. You can put the legs up. It's kind
of like sitting in a recliner, uh, if you will.
But it's a matter of keeping keeping the person comfortable,
which is important for both people who have physical mobility,

(30:22):
you know, but if you have somebody who has dementia,
keeping them comfortable is key to keeping them calm. You know,
if they're comfortable, you know, they are less inclined to
get agitated. Whereas you know, if if their butt hurts,
if their back hurts, you know, if they're not comfortable,
it's much more likely that they're going to go ahead

(30:43):
and get agitive.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
So hear you talk about planning, and certainly that's important,
but there must be times when somebody calls you and
I need help now, and I'm assuming you have people
on call, you're on for hours help with those emergency situations.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
What I tell people, you know, is when they ask
what kind of timeframe we can move on, they'll they'll say, well,
we want to go as soon as possible, and and
to me as soon as possible, as twenty four to
forty eight hours. You know, they're thinking three or four
weeks is as soon as possible. So we have to
we have to adjust that, you know. In an ideal world,

(31:21):
you know, we have you know, we have a couple
of days to put this plan together. And I always
kind of stress to people, you know, we are flying
on commercial airlines, you know, so you know we are
you know, we have limitations of what's available now. We
do have staff available all the time. That's not a problem,
you know, And there are many cases where you know,
I will tell one of my nurses or our coordinators

(31:41):
toll the nurse. Hey, you know it's it's nine o'clock
in the morning. You're flying out this afternoon at three o'clock,
so just make sure you have your bag packed and
our nurses know to have all their equipment ready to
go and packed up. But at the same time, you know,
we need to make sure that you know that there
are flights available. You know, we have Thanksgiving coming up.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
And I always kind of chuckle when when somebody is
gonna call us on Monday, if Thanksgiving week and say hey, okay,
or maybe Tuesday and say hey, we want to fly
Thursday or Friday, you know, the busiest travel days of
the year. You know, well we may not have any availability.
So we got to see what the airlines have. So yes, well,
while we have the staff, we uh, you know, we

(32:24):
need to make sure that there's there's flights available. You know,
we do. We do a lot of repatriations of American
citizens back to the US. And let's say you go
overseas and something happens and you need to get you
want to get back to the US as soon as possible. Uh,
you know, we'll have staff who can you know, we
can say, okay, you know, get on a plane. You're
flying to Milan, Italy, uh to bring somebody back tonight.

(32:48):
And then you know, we're working with the logistics, so
it really doesn't matter what's available from you know, from
the airline perspective. And even now, you know there's been
a lot of awful lot of airline cancelations, uh, you know,
due to the myriad of you know, problems that we're
facing this season.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, And I can yeah,
I can see your situation and the family saying, yes,
I want somebody right now, or my flight got canceled Bob,
Now maybe I need to go with you, right that's
maybe not So I have a question for you, at
what point and is there ever a point when you

(33:25):
say to a family, I'm not your best option. You
really do need a medical ambulance type situation, and I would.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
We do that quite regularly, you know, if somebody is
really medically fragile, one of the classic scenarios, if somebody
needs to lie down and they need a stretcher, uh,
then they need to go by air ambulance. And you know,
we're absolutely happy, you know, to refer them off to
some of the terrific airmbulance companies around. Unfortunately, none of

(34:03):
the none of the domestic carriers within the United States
provide stretcher service, and then they haven't for quite a
number of years. So if somebody needs a life flat,
they just need an air ambulance, you know, if they're
on you know medications, you know ivy medications, you know,
to keep their blood pressure up, what we call vasoactive drugs. Uh,

(34:24):
you know, then they're gonna have to go by by
air ambulance. You know, we're you know, we have we
have a so far, knock on what a perfect safety record.
We haven't. We haven't lost anybody yet, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
No, no one's just the way while you've been while
they've been in your care.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Nope, not nope, I'm knocking on my desk here as
as I say that. You know, we've we've had some
we've had some close ones. We've had we've had hospice patients,
uh that we transfer you know, the foreign countries, you know,
and and they've passed, you know, less in twenty four hours,
you know, after they got home. Now, in many casis,

(35:04):
people are motivated to get home and once they get home,
then you know, they can let go and die by
the family. But we also we have terrific relations with
the airlines that you know that I wouldn't want to
jeopardize our relations with the airlines. As a matter of fact.
You know, there are many times when I'm on flights,
I see patients, I see people passengers, you know, getting

(35:27):
on the plane, and I'm like, you know that, I'm
not sure this person should be on the plane. As
a matter of fact, one of our company policies is
always that when our nurses are flying, either with patients
or you know, if they're dead heading or applying to
where the patient is, to always introduce themselves to the
airline crew and make ourselves available and say, hey, I'm

(35:49):
a flight nurse. You know, I'm traveling with my kit here.
You know, if you have any emergencies, you know, please
feel free to reach out. You know this, and you
know they're very appreciative of that because this way, if
if they have somebody who's you know, not looking good
in the bag, they can come up and you know,
tap our nurse on the shoulder and say, hey, would
you would you come back and take a look at this,

(36:09):
you know, rather than having to make that you know
that dreaded. Hey is there is there a medical professional,
you know, on the airplane. So at least this way,
you know, our staff will go in and intervene. And
that's that happens pretty regularly unfortunately. So you know, even
when we have a patient, well we'll tell them that
and we'll tell the patient that we're going to intervene

(36:31):
so the flight doesn't get diverted, you know, to get
to their destination.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
So but when you talk about laying down, I have
to ask there must be situations when would someone fly
first class on an international flight, so they have that
ability to do that.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
That's we fly business class or first class, but usually
business class internationally. And yes, they have life flat seating.
So you know, at the risk of oversimplification, if somebody
can you know, physiologically tolerate sitting you know, for fifteen
to twenty minutes, we can transport them in a business
class seat so they can lie flat, you know, throughout

(37:09):
the vast majority of the journey. So you know, barring
somebody having a spinal cord injury or something like that,
the vast majority of people we can transport business class
seats As a matter of fact, we often get requests
for international stretcher service, you know that we're able to say,
I think business class would be a much more comfortable
way to go for the client than trying to strap

(37:30):
somebody down on a stretcher in the back of an airplane,
which is not is not particularly a comfortable way to go.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
No, no, it isn't. But what kind of medical equipment
are you allowed to take with you? Is there? Are
you allowed to take oxygen? Are you allowed to take
I mean you have to take use the airplane's masks.
What kind of things do you take with you?

Speaker 2 (37:51):
So we have oxygen concentrators that we use for all
of for you know, all of our flights. The airlines,
some airlines will provide tanked oxygen, and it's only the
international carriers and and it's a select few of the
airline international carriers that will provide tanked oxygen for patients.

(38:11):
None of the domestic carriers provide oxygen on any of
the routes. So we use battery operated portable oxygen concentrators. Now,
these things are just absolute marvels. When I started, you know,
they were the size you know of roller boards. I mean,
these were you know, very very large, bulky machines with
five pound batteries. You know, nowadays, you know, you can

(38:34):
get a nice oxygen concentrator that's five to ten pounds,
and you know, you know, the batteries are relatively small
and very efficient. Uh and they're terrific ways to go,
you know. And we use these for you know, patients
you know who whose nasal canule is the little little
prongs that go in your nose. For patients who have
you know, trincheostomies, the holes in their neck, you know,

(38:56):
we have special oxygen concentrators specific for them. We have
suction machines that we'll use for patients who again have
you know, either a lot of oral secretions or such
were you know me need to be suctioned out through
a trait.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's very interesting and I I always have to wonder
if I were on the airplane, I would I'm a
very curious person. I would want to know what is
that person's story, you know, I'd be curious.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
That's one of the terrific things that our nurses talk
about is you know, our nurses are doing one to
one care, so you know, on a trip, you know,
they will have, they'll be with the patient for you know,
twelve hours, you know, or longer. Some of our international
flights are quite low, you know, and you're sitting next
to somebody and you're talking to them for twelve hours.

(39:49):
So you know, you come out being the best friend.
As a matter of fact, you know, I'm still in
contact with some of the folks that I transported, you know,
ten years ago. You know that. You know, I know
people love or hate Facebook, but I'll tell you what.
You know, it's great for you know, making these connections
and you find out we transported a young man probably

(40:09):
ten years ago. He had a he ha a skiing
in the in the French Alps, and he had a
spinal cord injury there and you know that that left
him paralyzed from his legs and we wound up bringing
him back to the US. And you know, I've been
following him, you know, his graduation from college. You know,

(40:32):
he's he's involved in uh in the Paralympic sports. So
you know, ten years later, I'm still following what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Well, that was one of my questions, do you have
a story that's really stayed with you, maybe because of
the personality or your background or the situation, or when
it meant to the family, something that's really touching to you,
that is always your reminder of why you do and
why you love what you do.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
So years ago the answer is yes. And it's the
hospice page that are always the ones that get to me.
And we had a young woman, you know, who was
working here in the US, and she was from Tbilisi, Georgia,
the old the old Soviet Union, and she was diagnosed

(41:16):
with a very very aggressive form of cancer and she
didn't have she did not have very long and she
was really quite quite ill. And I wound up I
wound up flying her myself because you know, it was
one of those I was not comfortable sending any of
my team out to do it. And you know, I

(41:37):
would never I would never ask any of my team
to do something I wouldn't want to do. So, you know,
we we spent probably a good you know, eighteen hours
you know, flying ere. We flew La to Frankfort and
then Frankfurt to the Bliss, Georgia, and you know, she
was telling me her story and how you know, she
came here to provide for her children. She was herself,

(42:01):
you know there was there was you know, no, I
mean she had a small community but no family, uh
here in the in the States, and h you know,
we got to the you know, we got to the
airport and too Bilisee and we went to the air
we went to the hospital. There must have been eighty
people of her family all waiting at the hospital. It was.
It was absolutely incredible h to see. And you know,

(42:25):
we took her, you know, took her in the hospital,
and several of her family members you know, took me out,
and you know, they were they were quite appreciative that
we were able to get her home. You know, I
was really quite exhausted, so and I just went I
went to the ho So this was seven o'clock at
night that they took me out to dinner. You know,
I went to the hotel and I got up, you
know next morning for my flight, and I said, well,

(42:47):
let me just stop by, and we stopped by the
hospital and say goodbye, and found out that she had
passed at eleven o'clock that night, four hours after we
had got there. But the doctor was telling me that
you know, the tears of joy that that everybody felt
that you know, she yes, she passed and that was tragic,

(43:08):
you know, but she saw her children, you know, for
the first time in the number of years, she saw
her parents, you know, for the first time in the
number of years. You know, she was surrounded by family.
She was surrounded by the people that she loved, and
they got to say goodbye to her. You know, not,
you know, not she died in the US, nobody saw her.
So you know that that that's one of them that

(43:30):
just sticks to me, you know, you know, to this
to this day. Every every time I think about her,
and sorry, I get a little I get a little
teary when I think about it.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
So, but she got to go home.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
She went home. We got her home. And and with
hospice patients, you know, that's that's what we're doing. We're
getting people home. We're getting them to their loved ones.
They're getting them to their family and and you know,
we're getting we're giving them that last chance, you know,
to pass on their terms where they want to pass.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Sorry, it's okay, No, that's touching. And and you have
the in a strange way, you had the opportunity to
make that happen for her, right You're the one that
was able to do that, yes, and to change the

(44:24):
subject a little bit. Is there a lighter message, maybe
a passenger who kept everyone laughing and everyone was was
funny at something that kind of broke the tension that
they they were kind of the life of the party
in their own way and their own condition.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
You know, it's it's funny. We do have we have
a couple of these, you know.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
And not to downplay the seriousness of this last lady,
I don't want to take away from that, no.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
But this this there is there is so much you know,
lightness and joy, you know, as well as heaviness of
heart in what we do, you know, on a daily basis,
and you know, you don't know from one day to
the other, you know, are are you dealing with tragedy
and joy? One of one of our nurses, Doug, you know,
tells this story of he he was asked to transport

(45:17):
you know, grandpa. You know. It was from California, uh
to Massachusetts and it was one of those you know,
it seemed like a perfectly normal, uh you know story,
you know, just he had dementia. He was in a
nursing home, you know, didn't have a whole lot of
uh of interaction with anybody, and he wound up. You know,

(45:39):
Doug went up picking him up, uneventful, you know, wasn't
really sure how you know, aware this guy was or
what was going on. They got to the airport and
this guy just lit up. Well, you know, it turned
out that that he was a pilot in World War Two,

(45:59):
and and you know, all of a sudden, you know,
he's hearing, you know, the sounds of airplanes. He's looking
out and seeing airplanes, and all of a sudden, it's
like a switch turned and he came. He came alive. So,
you know, Doug goes in there at the nursing home,
you know, and this guy's just sitting in the chair,
you know, sullen, not not talking to anybody, you know,

(46:21):
and gets to the airport and all of a sudden,
he's he's literally just having he's loving life. It's like
talking about airplanes and this that, and talking to everybody
you know about the about the planes he flew. You know,
he wound up, you know, gets him on the plane.
You know, the flight crew find out that this guy
was a pilot. Well, the flight crew is coming out

(46:42):
and they're talking to them and they're like, well, do
you want to come up? So we actually wound up,
you know, they're wound up getting them into the cockpit.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
So here he is, you know, you know, in the morning,
he's sitting in a nursing home, you know, just you know,
not having any stimulation at all to here he is.
A couple of hours later, he's sitting in the cockpit
of an airplane, you know, and he's he's regaling stories
of his flights and ah and every it was just
it was, yeah, he's in, he was, he was and

(47:13):
you know, he just he he was chatting away, telling stories,
you know, you know when he was flying and all
of his exploits, and you know, the crews hanging around him,
and you know when when when they landed, we're always
the last one's off, so you know, the pilot comes out,
they're still chatting away about flying and this and that
and you know, everybody's stories, and it was it was

(47:35):
incredible the city, you know, as Doug released the story,
it was just an incredible, incredible experience, you know, to
have this person just come back to life, to have
them in their environment, you know. So they kind of
hung around the airport a while and just watched the
airplanes take off and land and really, really it was
a wonderful experience.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
And again Flying Angels was able to make that happen
and Bob, as we unfortunately reached towards the end this
we have just a few more minutes. But when should
families call you? Ideally not the day before Thanksgiving? How
much time do you feel you need? What should they
have ready for this kind of a journey, What do
they need to know, what do they need to have planned?

(48:16):
What should they know before they make this call to you?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
You know, I'd like to I'd like to keep it simple,
you know, ideally, you know, if they have a week,
we will Yeah, if they have a week, that's that's
that's kind of ideal. I mean, again, as I tell
people fly on commercial airlines, we're very transparent about our pricing.
You know, the airline fair is one of the is
one of the larger items in our in our itemization,

(48:42):
you know, so you know, if if we can find
flights that are less expensive, you know, we'll go that route.
And if we had the more time, we have, just
as everybody who buys a ticket on an airline knows,
if you're buying it two weeks out, it may cost
you less than if you're buying it seventy two hours out,
you know, and the the easier routes are the ones
that sell at the fast and so, you know, the
more options you have. But you know, if you have

(49:02):
a week, you know, all of our flight coordinators, the
people who are going to be answering the phone when
a family calls, are all they're all clinicians themselves. They're
all flight nurses, you know, so you know it's not
it's not I'm not going to put the onus on
the family. They say, we need to have all this
stuff ready. You can call our flight coordinator, have a
conversation and our flight coardintor's also a flight nurse, and say, okay,

(49:25):
you know these are the things that we want to know.
You know, height and weight and medications and you know
mobility and sitting college. But these are the things that
our flight coordinators can have a conversation, you know, with
a family member and say you know, yes, this is
something that we can do, this is how we would
do it, or you know this is this may not

(49:45):
be the best option for for your loved one. You know,
you may want to consider, you know, another way of
getting them there, you know, but it's a conversation that
our flight coordinators are very good at having, and they'll
last the questionestions, you know, that need to be asked.
So it's not like families have to think of everything
up front, because there's a lot of variables that go

(50:06):
into this and every single flight is kind of custom tailored.
So it's one of those trying to figure out what's
the best way to get from point A to point B.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
And I would suppose even there are some airlines that
are better suited for you than others.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
We tend to stick with the major carriers American, Delta,
United domestically. I mean we generally, you know, we generally
avoid the you know, the discount carriers. It just there's
a lot more there's a lot more options.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
That we have, sure, and again you have the relationships
already built and we already know that. And is there
ever a time when someone calls, like if I just
said I want my mom wants to go and have
Thanksgiving with my brother, I won't call you tomorrow, I promise,
But well, can you arrange for someone who's not Seriously,
I'll just a little bit maybe older.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
And absolutely you know, as I used to say when
I was working at a nurse in the hospital, not
every night and eats to be hard, you know, you know,
you know, we love patients that you know that that
are not particularly complicated. Maybe you know, maybe Grandma just
has a touch of dementia or maybe just you know,
is functioning, you know, but the family doesn't want her

(51:15):
to have to be subjected to, you know, again trying
to get to the airport, navigating check in, navigating TSA.
You know, some of these airports are incredibly large, you know,
and they just want somebody, they just want somebody to
go with them. And we're absolutely happy to accommodate. And
our our staff love those cases. They're they're the most

(51:35):
fun you can have when you have somebody who's you know,
is with it cognitively and you're traveling. You're traveling with
a friend. Now that friend just happens to be an
expert in air travel, you know, and you know that
friend is also a critical care training registered light nerds too,
so you know, if something goes wrong, you know, you're

(51:55):
ready to go.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, what a great idea. I hadn't thought about that,
but I think that's brilliant. One quick question in thirty
seconds or less, what would you like Flying Angels to
be that it isn't already? Or what would you more
would you like to do? And what about for you?

Speaker 2 (52:14):
I would like for people to know that our service exists.
I go to a lot of conferences with yes, that's
you know, I'm sure, I'm sure you can help with that.
But you know, I've been going to conferences now for
ten years, and and the thing I hear most often is,
you know, we never knew this service was available. And

(52:35):
you know, I am shouting from the rooftops and I
am you know, I'm again thrilled to be a guest
on your podcast, And I just hope that the thing
people can take away is this is an option. Our
service is there. You know, maybe we're maybe we're the
best option for your loved one, maybe we're not, but
you know, at least now you know that this is
an option, you know, and you know you can reach

(52:57):
out to us and we can provide guidance and say,
you know, we are the best option, or you may
want to consider this or this.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
But at least you'll offer those options exactly. But I
am so glad you're with us, and I have to
tell you I would love to be one of your nurses,
but that's not in my cards for right now, at
this point in my life. But who knows, who knows,
maybe sometime that'll happen. But we are so glad to
have you here for our audience, our listeners, and our viewers.

(53:26):
We've been talking with doctor Bob Bachelor of Flying Angels,
and I hope that what you're taking away is this,
when life happens and someone you love needs to travel
but can't do it alone, you're not stuck between do
it yourself and hope for the best or spend a
fortunn air ambulance. There is an option, and it is
called Flying Angels. Remember that the heart of Always Angels

(53:50):
our program is that you don't have to walk these
transitions alone. We want to provide a resource. We were
going to have Bob's information here on the screen for you.
We'll have it in our text on our our YouTube
channel as well as the radio station. I'm Valerie van
Deis over. Thank you so much, Bob and our viewers
and listening audience for being with us today. Take in
deep breath, everyone, give yourself some grace. Hug the people

(54:13):
when you can, especially as we come up in this
holiday season. Be with your family members, reach out, call them,
talk to them and your friends, and remember that age
is not a number, but love and wisdom are forever.
We will see you on the next episode of Always
Age Us, and thank you from my heart. A bachelor