Kiwanis, fire crews laud the islander for her teaching, assisting patients in crisis.

Natalie Meacham sees her job as nothing out of the ordinary, and it isn’t – if flying in helicopters to transport critically ill patients from four states to hospitals is your cup of tea.

To the Bainbridge Island Kiwanis Club, the job is extraordinary, and Meacham, flight nurse and outreach education coordinator for Airlift Northwest, has earned the club’s Everyday Hero award for 2005.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Meacham said, “because I don’t consider this to be unusual. It’s like being a banker or schoolteacher.”

A Kiwanis brunch this Sunday will honor Meacham for “rendering a service beyond what is ordinary or expected and for doing so without regard for attention or accolades, but rather because it was the right thing to do and needed to be done.” Co-sponsoring the award is San Carlos Restaurant, Meacham’s favorite restaurant.

“She’s seen some of us at our very worst and does her darndest to make sure we live to tell about it, but you never hear a peep from her,” Bainbridge Island Kiwanis Club president Kristin Ekern said.

Local firefighters say having someone of Meacham’s experience and expertise bringing them specialized training as a volunteer is “a really unique opportunity,” Bainbridge Fire Chief Jim Walkowski said.

“It’s unusual to be able to have access to somebody of her caliber come in at short notice (for training), and she does it usually free of charge,” Walkowski said. “She very much deserves this recognition and more.”

Meacham has been responding to medical emergencies in Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Montana for 22 years and providing “innovative training” to nurses, doctors and paramedics in fire departments and hospitals on pediatric medical emergency and trauma treatment and advanced and pediatric life support.

In some ways, her teaching work has a wider impact than the care she provides patients.

She is very much in demand for training, teaching classes in different locations every week and booked nearly a year in advance.

“If you’re traveling in Western Washington or southeast Alaska and something happens to you, there’s a good chance they’ve been trained by Natalie,” Bainbridge Island volunteer firefighter Jim Dow said.

Walkowski says Meacham still makes time to come in and train BIFD despite the department’s sometimes unpredictable schedule.

“She gets so much experience flying state-to-state. It’s especially hard for a small department to get that training,” Walkowski said. “It betters our people and the end product is we can provide a better level of service to the community.”

Meacham said she finds the teaching “very rewarding,” knowing that her students will be better prepared and patients will receive better care.

The number of patients she has cared for is countless; Meacham stopped counting when she reached 3,000 in her first 10 years.

Before joining Airlift Northwest, she worked for over six years as a critical care nurse at Harborview Medical Center.

It was the element of uncertainty in the job that attracted Meacham. Sometimes the flight crew will be redirected midflight to a more critical case, or on arrival the patient’s condition may be more or less serious than expected.

“It’s more interesting not knowing from one minute to the next what you’ll be doing,” Meacham said.

The flying itself isn’t physically taxing, she says, but it is important to be mentally and physically ready for a shift, which runs from 12 to 24 hours long. “Working through lunch” may mean lunch at 5 or 6 p.m.

Asked if she ever worried about her safety given recent helicopter crashes, Meacham said, “You have to think about it as a consideration (before taking the job). I made my decision years ago and nothing has changed to change my decision…the risk hasn’t changed day-to-day or year-to-year.

“As we get older, you know how tenuous life can be, but it doesn’t change what I do or what I think.”

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Salute a hero

The Kiwanis brunch honoring flight nurse Natalie Meacham will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 6 at the Wing Point Golf and Country Club, and is open to the public. Cost is $19. Reservations required; call 842-2688.