The Bobby Bones Show - A Mother to the Rescue

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

As a thrill seeker and born caretaker, Aysia Bly found her dream job as a pediatric flight nurse--where she performs her duties while soaring above Philly in a helicopter. But the job is inherently dangerous, and as a mom to a young son, Aysia must contend with that risk everyday.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, the Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying. under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft

like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slice of Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, and so much. I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more

men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oddly enough, and this is going to sound so funny, I am a baseball field person. Like, I look for a baseball field every time we take off. Oh, look, there's a baseball field. Maybe it's the softball player in me, but I, like, love to see them from up high. That's Asia B. She's 30 years old, lives in Maryland, and technically speaking, she's a critical care transport

nurse at a large pediatric hospital in Philadelphia. But Asia's version of critical care transport nursing is quite unique because she's what's referred to in her line of work as a flight nurse. Yeah, so a flight nurse is someone who essentially goes and picks up patients in aircrafts that can either be a helicopter, it could be a fixed wing, or any of those kind of vehicles that fly. In honor of International Nurses Day, I spoke with Asia about her job as a flight nurse. why she fell in love with such a risky career, and how she balances the demands of such an intense job

with motherhood and everything else she's got going on in life. And if you've never heard of flight nursing, you're not alone, because prior to taking this job, neither had Asia. But as an experienced ER nurse and a self-described thrill-seeker, Asia knew the moment she heard that you could take care of patients while soaring through the air, that she'd found the job for her. There was only one little issue.

She'd never been in a helicopter before. Tell me about that first flight you took. Were you nervous? So we got a page and they send you an alert saying, this is dispatch, this is the patient. And they're like, yeah, you guys are going to go up for a flight today. And I was like, what? A flight?

And they're like, yeah, you're going to go up in the helicopter today. And then, as she explained it, things started getting real. She and her team take the elevator to the top. floor of the hospital and then walk out to the helipad. It's cold and it's windy and her adrenaline is pumping. And then the nurse who had came with that crew is like, oh, is this your first flight? I'm like, yep. She was like, oh, okay, like here's the, you know, I'm going to show you the parts of the helicopter,

stay in the front, don't walk towards the back. It's kind of like when you're having a baby. They're telling you all these things and you're like, I can't focus. And then I must have got too far away. She was like, stay close. Remember? I was like, oh, God, I forgot already. Fortunately for Asia, the first flight was to bring her out to a patient that they were picking up for transport,

so she could focus on the flight itself, get over those first flight jitters, which for her immediately faded the minute the helicopter took off. I thought it was going to be a lot more bumpy, but it was very smooth. It was amazing. It was just amazing being that high up. As you can imagine, being a nurse in a helicopter is a heck of a lot different from nursing in a hospital. hospital. For one thing, it's really tight in there. So a helicopter is definitely a confined space. It is so small. Even though I'm only five feet, can't even like stand up inside of it. That's how small it is. And unlike a hospital that has a well-stock supply room and all the machines and monitors a nurse could need, the limited space of a helicopter means Asia and her team need to pack

wisely and bring only the essentials. Our resources are pretty much what you bring a in your pocket. So we wear something called a flight suit. It has about like 12 pockets on it. And you can stick things in it. I have like flushes. I have like my alcohol swabs. Because there's not a lot of moving.

Like you can't go reaching in a bunch of bags and doing a bunch of moving around. Not to mention. They're up there flying through the air. It's just her, a partner, and the pilot. So if she doesn't know how to do something, she can't page someone on another floor to come help. So this means that a flight. Light nurse like Asia has to be on top of their game.

One of the things that I always tell new nurses, in the moment, it'll come to you. And that trust Asia has in her skills, that confidence in herself to rise to the moment, stems from her training as an athlete. I played softball in high school. I used to get on the dirt, and I used to be like, I hope a ball doesn't come to me, right? Because you don't want to make a mistake. You don't want an error. You're worried about these things. I'm like, I hope a ball doesn't come to me.

And my softball coach, she said, if you're on this field and you hope the ball doesn't come to you, then we have an issue. And it's kind of the same thing in nursing. When you first start out and you're a new nurse, you're like, I hope I don't get a hard patient. I hope I don't get an IV today. You know, it's one of those things where that is a notice that you need to step your skills up because when you go to work, you should be saying, no matter what comes in that door

today, I know that I'm going to be able to handle it, especially as a flight nurse, no matter what page we get that day, I know that when I get up in that helicopter, I'm going to be able to do this. If you can hear a sense of conviction in Asia's voice when she talks about nursing, there's a reason for that. Because nursing has always been Asia's goal. Yeah, this is 100% plan A for me. I always wanted to be a nurse. I went to a high school that was called a vocational high school, so they let you study some type of vocation. and my vocation was practical nursing, which you got to graduate with your LPN from high school.

So I did that program, and I was like, yep, this is it. And then from there, I went straight to college and got my four-year degree right away. And the rest is history. I 100% once I started in it, just even that first day, I was like, this is what I want to do. This is definitely my calling. So no, this isn't one of those stories about a wayward soul trying out a bunch of different jobs before finding the one that suited them. This is the story of a woman who knew, deep down, exactly what she wanted to do in this life,

and then committed herself wholly to turning that dream into a reality. So when Asia shows up to work, she's not hoping to pass the time playing on her phone. She's there because she has a job to do, her dream job. We have this thing in nursing, which is kind of, I think, all nursing. It's called a superstition where you don't say it's quiet in here or I'm bored. Because when you say those things, things come in. And I'm the one that's going to walk in like, guys, it's so quiet in here. Because I'm like, we're doing this.

We're going to turn this up in here today. And people are like, Asia, why did you say that? I'm like, because we're just sitting here bored. Like, we need things to do. And so I am 100% the person like, I hope we get a flight today. When we come back from the break, Asia's pager goes off. A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done. This is the kind of person you need.

Express employment professionals can help because in good times or bad, we understand how critical it is to manage your business for today with the right workforce. We offer hiring solutions to fit changing demands. Express knows jobs. Get to know Express. Go to Expresspros.com to find a location near you. We're back with Asia B, who shows up at her dream job as a critical care transport nurse, not knowing exactly what that day is going to look like.

One minute she might be working in the hospital, and the next she's speeding down I-95 in the back of an ambulance, or putting a stint in a patient while soaring over Washington, D.C. in a medical helicopter. And for Asia, that uncertainty, that big question mark at the beginning of each day, is one of the best parts of the job. But it's a job not without risks. Do you have a son, right? I do. He's a five-year-old. My son's name is Tate. Does your son worry about you going up in the helicopter?

My son is five. So I don't know if he actually has grasped the idea that I'm like that it's so dangerous. In his mind, you know, when you're that young, the beauty of innocence, you just don't understand this is dangerous. Mommy's job is dangerous. Medical flights often occur in poor conditions in challenging locations. And while the industry has taken measures to increase the safety of their work, risks still abound. In fact, just days before I interviewed Asia, a medical helicopter went down in Nevada, killing everyone aboard. And then, when I was editing this piece, A few weeks later, another medical helicopter went down in Alabama. Asia is not ambivalent to the risk of her job.

She knows that every time you go up, there is that chance. But she also knows that it's part of the job, a job that she feels destined to do. I think that one of the things for nurses, most nurses, nurses who care, are they're just so selfless, right? Because the reality is we're here to help people. And so in our mind, that's always our, like, that's always at the forefront. So we don't really, you can't really think of anything else in those moments. As a mom herself, Asia knows the stakes. She knows that oftentimes she's seeing families in their absolute worst moments.

Seeing mothers and fathers in the midst of a living nightmare. The thing about nursing that kind of fascinates me, I think, is that you are literally taking care of someone at their most vulnerable time. You have the power to kind of be the difference between a good experience, how they deal with this most stressful time in their life, or adding more stress and making it terrible for them, right? And especially, I think, being a pediatric nurse, this is your most prized possession, right? And now you are literally, as a mom, feeling so helpless in this situation and you have no idea what to do. And here I come and I'm like, I know more than you about your kid, right? No one likes to hear that. But I think in those moments, like empowering

parents and being able to be there for them in their toughest time is probably like the best. If my patient leaves and doesn't feel like I've helped them or held their hand through this, what was the point then? There's just really no point. So here's the thing. While this episode is about Asia, it's also about nurses everywhere. It's about those millions of men and women who put on their nurses scrubs each day and do their jobs no matter how difficult or exhausting or downright dangerous it might be. At the height of the pandemic, entire cities came to a standstill as people banged pots and pans and screamed in praise of nurses and doctors and other frontline workers. Maybe you were one of those people who at 7 o'clock every night shouted out your window

or stomped up and down on your fire escape in praise of our lives. In praise of our people, who at 7 o'clock every night, front-line workers in praise of our heroes. And as things return to a sense of normalcy, I'm wondering if we can't find some way to continue thanking those people. People like Asia, who we turn to in our times of need. If you'd like to thank Asia, you can check her out on her website, mothering the mama.com. For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson. A win is a win. A win. A win. A win is a win. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford, and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast,

it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make

to the players flying under the radar, this is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Ellen's, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian. Michael Ranjini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.