Colleen Ruddy looked out of the helicopter down onto New York City below.

The city that never sleeps, now a coronavirus hot spot, was eerily idle with empty streets during that night of April 7.

Ruddy, 35, of Scranton, a nurse with LifeNet of New York near Monticello, and her flight crew were among a small fleet of nearly a dozen medevac helicopters from New England to the Chesapeake Bay pressed into service to evacuate several dozen

COVID-19 patients from hospitals in Queens, one of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic, to other hospitals in the region. The hospitals at the epicenter were having problems with oxygen systems because of high demand, and a mass-casualty alert was sent out to medevac companies for them to fly out COVID-19 patients to other hospitals — stat.

“They pretty much said ‘all hands on deck,’?” Ruddy said.

Helicopters came from upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland, she said.

Ruddy and her LifeNet flight crew were dispatched to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens.

Ruddy’s LifeNet crew usually covers parts of Sullivan and Orange counties in New York and Wayne County in Pennsylvania, with patients flown to the nearest trauma centers. Their single-engine helicopter does not have flotation equipment and normally would not be allowed to fly over the Hudson and into New York City, she said. But this COVID-19 emergency was an exception.

About 7:30 p.m. on April 7, LifeNet lifted off from its base in Harris, New York, in Sullivan County. Air traffic controllers directed the chopper flown by pilot Jack Mayers, as well as the other helicopters responding to the same call, into John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.

The weather was good. In the air, Ruddy readily spotted Big Apple landmarks, including Central Park and LaGuardia Airport, en route to JFK.

“It was open, it was clear and it was lit up — and it was quiet,” Ruddy said of New York City.

The flight took about 40 minutes.

There was maybe only one commercial flight heading to JFK at that time, but the evacuation effort required an air-traffic “musical chairs” coordination of all of the incoming helicopters, Ruddy said.

After landing, Ruddy and EMT paramedic Nathan Rasmussen got into an ambulance for the short ride of a few miles to Jamaica Hospital, to pick up their patient.

Ambulances lined up and crowded the roads near the hospital, which was abuzz with activity. Covered head-to-toe in hazmat-type suits and wearing masks and goggles, Ruddy and Rasmussen were ushered into the hospital.

“We went through the emergency room, and the ER was just flooded. It was something you can’t even describe until you’re in it,” Ruddy said. “They (ER patients) are all on stretchers, and all with masks on.”

The patient they came to transfer was intubated in a critical care unit. A nurse at the door gave them a brief report on the patient, who was being sent to Albany Medical Center Hospital in Albany, New York.

The flight from Queens to Albany took about an hour.

“We were pretty smooth sailing all the way,” Ruddy said. “We were there to evacuate a patient. Other than that, it was an uneventful flight.”

With their mission completed, the LifeNet crew flew back to their base, a 35- to 40-minute trip, completing their return early the next morning around 2 a.m.

“We flew the sickest of the sick,” Ruddy said of the airlift operation. “It was surreal because we are doing our job, helping out, and these poor patients are going through this” illness.

“I was excited to be doing it, to be able to help them,” Ruddy added. “It was a proud moment. Nobody anticipated doing something like that.”

A 2003 graduate of Scranton High School, Ruddy graduated in 2007 from Misercordia University in Dallas.

A registered nurse, Ruddy worked for a year at Community Medical Center in Scranton and then four years at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.

In 2012, she moved back to Scranton and worked for a year at Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital in Binghamton, New York. She has been with LifeNet since 2013.

Her aunt, Peg Ruddy,, bursts with pride when speaking about Colleen and her work as a nurse.

“I’m very proud of her. She does a great job,” Peg Ruddy said.

Contact the writer:

[email protected];

570-348-9100 x5185;

@jlockwoodTT on Twitter

Editor’s note: As Northeast Pennsylvania deals with the coronavirus, residents continue to help their neighbors and serve others. Let us know about the good things happening in our communities by sending an email to the newsroom at [email protected] or calling us at 570-348-9133.

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