Fendrich helps deliver aid through the air with Avera CareFlight
Jun. 24—SALEM — Adam Fendrich has a great view from his office window, the windshield of a Eurocopter H-145 helicopter.
Though he isn't a pilot, as a registered nurse with Avera CareFlight he boards the health care system's various aircraft on a regular basis. He's an important part of a flight team designated with the task of caring for onboard patients as they are transported from medical sites inside and outside of South Dakota.
And for his work in this field, Fendrich recently was named the employee of the year for 2020 at Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls.
"I didn't see it coming," Fendrich recently told the Mitchell Republic about being named the recipient of the award. "I'm very grateful that I got it, but I see it all through McKennan CareFlight. We have some tremendous individuals in the organization."
Fendrich and his team are responsible for answering the call when a patient needs quick transport between hospitals or other medical facilities, as well as occasionally transporting victims of accidents directly from the site of the crash to a trauma center where they can receive the fast, emergency care that could likely save their lives.
He has been with Avera for seven years after having worked in the hospital intensive care unit for a time and eventually making a request to start working with the CareFlight program. It's a role he finds immeasurably fulfilling, and one that is a long way from where he started out prior to looking at careers in the medical field while in high school.
A native of Salem, Fendrich hoped to find a career that would allow him to still contribute to the family farm, where his father continues to work to this day.
"I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to college undecided, and I kind of wanted a career where I'd have some time to stay up to date on the family farm," Fendrich said. "But I also wanted a career that was exciting and challenging and different every day."
A nurse in the family encouraged him to explore the nursing field. He work shadowed at Avera McKennan intensive care unit, and found the work to be exciting and rewarding. After attending South Dakota State University, he joined Avera in earnest in 2014, where he was a patient care technician and worked in the ICU.
But he soon had his sights set on joining the CareFlight program, a coveted position that required training and dedication. CareFlight personnel need to have a mastery of many forms of medicine, as the patients they transport can vary widely in ailment and services needed.
"It's a challenging spot to get. It's competitive, and there are only so many positions," Fendrich said. "You have to have a background in critical care, emergency medicine and quite a few qualifications. I'm really glad they took a chance and hired me."
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"It's a challenging spot to get. It's competitive, and there are only so many positions."
— Adam Fendrich, registered nurse with Avera CareFlight
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After getting his foot in the door, he needed to undergo orientation and learn the ins and outs of how a flight nurse and their partners operate in the field. There are three months of additional orientation as well as trauma and safety courses on how to work around ambulances and other aircraft.
It's an intense initiation that one cannot really prepare for until they are in the middle of it.
"It's a completely different environment. It's not like anything the hospital can reproduce," Fendrich said. "You learn every single day, and every patient flight is different. You'd be hard-pressed not to learn something out of every transport."
While he did not have any particular love of flying, he said boarding a helicopter or other aircraft came naturally with the new position. That helped in the transition from working in a ground-based hospital room to the tighter confines of an airborne helicopter.
"I had been on commercial planes and it didn't bother me. I've never been scared of heights or anything like that, but not a lot of people have boarded a helicopter," Fendrich said. "It didn't bother me. After a while you get kind of desensitized to it whether you want to or not. You kind of jump in and see what happens."
The job takes him from one corner of the state to the other. Avera CareFlight operates flight stations in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen and Pierre and uses a variety of aircraft for different purposes. For short distances a Eurocopter H-145 and two Eurocopter EC-145 helicopters are used. For distances over 150 miles or if inclement weather grounds helicopter flights, CareFlight employs a King Air 200 and two Pilatus PC-12 fixed-wing planes.
Crews come in specialized groups, including adult and pediatrics care, neonatal and obstetrics teams. They fly around the state, as well as to some out-of-state locations in North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska.
The vast majority of flights are interfacility flights where the aircraft moves a patient from one location to another in order to get the patient specialized treatment that may not be available at the patient's current location.
In his time with Avera CareFlight, Fendrich has earned a reputation as a reliable, dedicated flight team member. That's something that stood out when it came to naming him the Avera McKennan employee of the year.
Travis Struss, base supervisor for Avera CareFlight, praised Fendrich for his work. Fendrich sets an example with his obvious concern for the patients in his care, even after his specific tasks in getting the patient to their destination have been completed.
That kind of attitude makes him an excellent team player, working closely with ground-based personnel to make sure the patient has everything they need.
"He does this in a way that is complementary to the care the providers and nurses on the site are giving the patient — he has a natural talent for doing his part without getting in the way," Struss said. "That level of compassion is noteworthy. His hospitality, even as a newer team member, is also amazing, and he treats all trainees and newcomers to our profession with respect and warmth."
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"He's well-known for his tendency to stick around after patients are admitted, helping to ensure their stability."
— Travis Struss, base supervisor with Avera CareFlight
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Fendrich said that attitude is an extension of the fulfillment he gets helping patients through Avera CareFlight. It's important work — work that can mean life or death for the people who have entrusted their health and safety to a crew in the back of a helicopter.
Fendrich plans to continue on the path he started seven years ago and serving patients in need throughout the region. He recently moved back to the family farm in Salem, from where he operates and travels to the multiple Avera air stations in the state for different work shifts. He helps his father with the farm work when he can, and relishes the chance for his wife Rachel and son Weston to enjoy the rural South Dakota upbringing he cherished as a kid.
"I do a little bit of farming, but my father does the vast majority. I'm more like a hired hand than a farmer or a rancher," Fendrich said with a chuckle. "I wanted to start a family and have my children to have the same opportunities I had and the resources that I had at my disposal."
It's a nice position to be in, he said, after having attended college not knowing what career to pursue, to diving into the nursing profession and climbing the ladder until he was literally working in the sky. He's glad he made the decision he did, and knows others could find the same level of satisfaction he did by buckling down and bringing dedication to helping others in need.
And that goes for all nurses, be they air or ground based.
"It's so great. (Being a nurse) has a wide variety of careers and jobs you can pursue. And as far as being a flight nurse, you have to be engaged and really dive in, and then seek out the opportunities to learn," Fendrich said.
