HCA Virginia flight crew

HCA Virginia’s flight crew is sporting a few baby bumps this spring.

There’s a something in the air among the flight crew stationed at HCA Virginia’s Chippenham Hospital. It’s a baby boom. Two nurses are due within days of each other in March and another will welcome his new baby in June.

“It’s kind of cool,” flight nurse Carly Davis said. “Hannah (Cox) and I are due at the same time, we have the same doctor, and we’re delivering at the same place. You never know – we could be [delivery room] neighbors!”

While Davis and Cox are going through this shared experience, they are also giving support to their fellow flight nurse, Brad Rogers, and his partner who is a Chippenham ER nurse. They are all able to relate and help answer each other’s questions, Rogers said.

In addition to the medically-trained flight crew, the Air Care Eagle helicopter carries one patient at a time, critical care medication, a ventilator, IV pumps, and a supply of blood. The nurses say it’s like working in the ICU, but in the sky, and both Davis and Cox are continuing to care for their airborne patients right up until their due dates.

“Hannah and I face each other when we’re in the aircraft and we joke about our bellies bumping into each other soon,” Davis said. “We make a lot of jokes about taking care of the pregnant women on board. God bless the medics who work with us.”

They deliver critical care to patients in need, Cox said, and are experts in their field.

“We have to be on top of our game for every type of serious illness or injury,” she said. “We’re always running scenarios and trying to stay on top of the latest and greatest of what medicine has for us right now.”

The next thing they’re adding to their list to tackle? Flight crew onesies.