Benefits to patients outweigh risks, air medical transport workers say

For medical professionals who climb on board helicopters hundreds of times a year, the dangerous job can mean dark, urgent flights through uncertain landscapes, emergency landings, and medical equipment bouncing because of choppy winds. But air medical transport also grants it's the rush of saving the lives of people who might not otherwise have been reached in time. That is what has kept Mary Jo Dunne, 53, working as a flight nurse for 23 years on more than 2,000 flights with the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network, even as she hears all too frequently of medical helicopter crashes like the one that killed four people in Aurora, IL.