Two things Lifeflight realized when he awoke, first the spare gurney from the garage is really comfortable, and second somepony was going to pay for dumping ice water on him and breaking his bed. The good news was the rest of the night was uneventful. After the transport team returned from their two am call there wasn't a peep out of that blasted alarm gong. Much as he would enjoy laying on the gurney for the remainder of the morning , there was some big shot reporter from tbe Canterlot Times due to show up for an interview in about an hour. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he rolled off the cot.
"Well no time like the present," he said to the midnight blue pegasus in the mirror. After brushing his teeth an giving his coat a good scrub he tucked his storm cloud grey mane up under his bandana. Lifeflight's blwck bandana has become his tell tail trade mark. He was never seen in public without it on and many ponies speculated why. Rumor had it that he was infaft bald underneath and the hair hanging out the back was a ploy. Others believed he had a deformed head or suffered some injury. Truth be told he just really liked wearing it. A bandana is very useful, it helds keep your mane out of your eyes along with keeping the sweat hidden durring a stressful situation.
"Flight! Report to the common room," came the strong feminine voice of the shift supervisor, Needle Stick. Not wanting tomake his supervisore angry, her temper was legendary, Lifeflight finished threw on his bright yellow vest and hurried out to the common room. When he rounded the corner the first pony he saw was Needle Stick. She was a short thin earthpony with a white coat and red mane. Her cutie mark was a red cross who's bottom point ended in a hypodermic needle. The second pony in the room he did not recognize. She was a tall and slender unicorn with a lovley aqua coat and sea foam green mane. "This is Ms. Fast Type and she is here to give you your fifteen seconds of fame. Dont mess this up Lifeflight, we need the public to like us so we can expand our program," Needle Stick said with a huff.
"I thought it was fifteen minutes of fame," Lifeflight responded sounding almost hurt.
"Are you kidding? Once anypony starts to read your story they will get borred and turn to the next one in fifteen seconds tops," she replied, sticking her tongue out as she turned and left the common room.
"Well Ms. Type, if you just want to grab a seat anywhere you like I guess we can get this show on the road," Lifeflight said with a small chuckle.
"You get right to the point, don't you Mr. Lifeflight. Is that perhaps why you are the lead flight medic? And why is there a lead flight medic and a lead transport medic?" Needle Stick asked as she levitated a note book and a pencil from her saddle bag.
"First off just call me Lifeflight. Mr. Just makes me sound old. And secondly in this business you don't have time to fool around. You can be called way at any moment. Oh! That reminds me." Lifeflight pushed on the comunication stone in his vest," control air five is in last out status until further notice."
"Recived, last out until further notice," came tbe responce through the stone.
"Wow that is intersting," Fast Type said with her jaw hanging slack. "Ok Lifeflight, tell me about PonMed. I hear you are asking for public funds so you can expand operations? Well if you are wanting public support we are going to need a good reason to back you. Many ponies belive this is just a taxi ride to the hospital for the wealthy."
"Well you see PonMed was tbe brain child of Doctor Cam Zipper, or Doc Z as we call him. Doc Z saw the need to provide emergency prehospital care to the critically sick and wounded. He knew there are these special crystals that a unicorn can enchant and they can be used to communicate with any other crystals in the area. Now this is of course very expensive so Doc Z provided all the start up money out of his own personal funds," Lifeflight explained as he poored himself a cup of coffee. "Would you like a cup?"
"No thank you, drink tea myself," she responded with a shake of her head.
"Well sorry but we don't have any of that here. Now where was I? I am sure yoj are aware of the red fire pull boxes located on just about every street corner? Well we are attaching blue medical pull boxes to those same poles. These boxes will have a stone secured inside so you can talk with our dispatcher and tell them what is wrong. Now it is true that some of the wealthy have bought some smaller versions they can keep in their own houses, but we hope that ten years down the road we will be able to place one free of charge in every home in Equestria."
"Now I heard that Baltimare is looking to follow your example?" Fast Type asked.
"Yes ma'am. They have selected Doctor Stat Treatment as their medical program director. He will be sending us a crew this summer to train with us and to learn how we do things."
"Now what kind of training to you have?"
"Well the pegasi are all trained as flight medics. We are able to perform wound treatment along with being able to administer some medications. We all also carry the ability to intubate patients wbo can not breath on their own. Our unicorn medics are able to do a little more by starting an IV. Since they can use their magic to hold the needle more steady than we can. Also they have access to a few more medications that we are just not able to carry durring flight," Lifeflight e plained as he looked down at his near empty cup of coffee.
"So how does a typical call for help get relayed to you?"
"Well there is a large gong on the wall. That will sound and then a voice will come across our stones and tell us where the call is. Now since we only have one dispatcher and they are generally busy with our patient, the voice that comes across is just a magical construct that repeates key words that are written on a peice of paper at dispatch."
"So how did you get into this emergency medicin?"
"I started as a field medic in the guard. After I heard that Doc Z was wanting to start this emergency care for civilians I jumped all over the idea. By good friend Cardio Thump joined me as soon as his enlisment was up and we used our knowledge to help establish the system you see today."
"Very good. Well it has been a pleasure meeting you Lifeflight but I really must end the interview. You know how deadlines can be," Fast Type said with a pleasant smile.
"Not a."
GONG! "AIR FIVE, AIR SIX,TRANPORT ONE, MSO ONE, BALANCING MEDEX RESPONCE, MALE UNCONSCIOUS, BREATHING NOT VERIFIED, (address redacted) TIME OUT, ZERO NINE TWENTY-FIVE."
"Well looks like that ends our interview! Gotta fly!" Lifeflight called over hos sholder as he raced towords the door and threw his medbag over his neck. "Air five enroute," he said I to the comunication stone and took flight.