NASA Awards Medical Support Team Contract To UF Emergency Physicians

May 30, 2002

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida physicians who provide emergency medical support to NASA’s space shuttle launches and landings have completed countless hours of mock drills simulating every catastrophe imaginable.

They are experts in advanced cardiac and advanced trauma life support. They’ve learned precisely where to cut a spacesuit to quickly extricate an astronaut. They know what to do in the event crew members suffer traumatic injuries or are hurt in an explosion, chemical leak or fire on the launch pad.

And while their critical care skills are pressed into service dozens of times a day in hospital emergency rooms or surgical suites, the UF physicians who travel to Kennedy Space Center for each mission hope they’ll never have to use the extra training there.

Now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded the UF College of Medicine’s department of emergency medicine more than $685,000 to continue making sure the doctors are ready, just in case. That could come as a measure of comfort to the crew of the shuttle Endeavour, which is scheduled to rocket toward the International Space Station today (5/30).

“Our primary mission is to give immediate evaluation and care to injured astronauts,” said Dr. Ahamed Idris, the program’s director and a professor of emergency medicine, anesthesiology and medicine at the College of Medicine. “Our secondary mission is to take care of other people who are injured, such as other personnel involved in extracting the astronauts from the launch site, firemen and other rescue crew, and, of course, spectators who might be injured.

“Launching and landing the space shuttle is considered to be hazardous,” Idris added. “NASA engineers estimate there will be an engine failure in one out of every 80 launches. We’ve had two engine failures that we know about since the program started. With each launch, the people at NASA become a little more anxious. We’re dealing with statistical averages here, and with each launch the probability of a mishap occurring increases.”

UF College of Medicine physicians have been training emergency medical support teams for NASA’s manned space flight missions since 1981, when they were first awarded a five-year contract for the program. The contract had been renewed ever since, but this is the first year the agency put it out for national competitive bid.

For each launch and landing, UF dispatches four faculty physicians from a pool of more than 60 trained in emergency medicine, anesthesiology, surgery or critical care medicine. Each has completed an orientation and training program sponsored by NASA at Kennedy Space Center. Team members must be recertified every three years. The funding will be used in part to train an additional 30 to 50 UF physicians a year.

“We need to have a fairly large pool of people trained and on the roster because we need to support the launches and landings of the space shuttle at any time of the day or night,” Idris said. “Sometimes these launches are scrubbed, and we are given only 12 hours’ notice to form another medical team. No matter what time of the day or night, and on weekends or on holidays, we are there and we’re there on time, and we’ve never failed to produce a fully qualified team.”

Contract funds also will support a daylong disaster plan orientation program, which includes coursework on toxicology. In addition, UF team members practice two full-scale disaster simulations annually, Idris said. These drills include the use of helicopters that fly astronauts tagged with injuries to a triage site. Physicians then practice the steps they need to take to treat mass casualties. Mini-simulations of eight different disaster scenarios also are held after every shuttle landing, about six times a year.

Under the terms of the contract, the team will provide on-site diagnostic ultrasound at each launch and landing, so that in the event of an accident, doctors will be poised to quickly determine whether someone has an abdominal injury, Idris said. UF physicians also will train NASA physicians in ultrasonography and alternative airway techniques.

So far, UF physicians have not had to press their disaster training into service for NASA, Idris said, though they’ve had a moment when they thought they might.

“In 1996, there was an engine failure,” he said. “With five seconds to go before launch, the main engines fired, and we could see vapor coming up off the launch pad, but then nothing happened. Everyone started getting a little anxious at that point, and we started to prepare for a contingency. Fortunately, there were no mishaps. What had happened was only two of the three main engines fired and the on-board computer detected that and stopped the launch sequence at three seconds before launch.”