The Flying Lifeguard: The Avalon Beach Patrol Paramedic’s Career Takes Flight
Tyler Wolf and joined by his dad, Murray Wolf.
Career ascension can be measured many ways.
For Tyler Wolf, the barometer is visual, and literal. He’s a flight paramedic, caring for patients being transported to trauma centers and specialty locations throughout the eastern United States via helicopter.
June will mark his one-year elevation, literally, from ground paramedic duties, which he began in 2013 with AtlantiCare. Wolf now operates via partnership between Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and AtlantiCare out of the Woodbine Municipal Airport.
Flights can be as short as a three-minute jaunt between Camden and Philadelphia, or as long as a couple of hours up to Connecticut. All trips are bookended by the need to load and then unload sophisticated medical equipment.
This was a logical step for Wolf, who applies knowledge gleaned from the ground into responsibilities in the air. At levels of both intermediate and high urgency, he plays a critical role assisting patients.
“The gratification of this job is being able to help somebody,” he says. “If we are picking up somebody, we already figure that this is not a good day for them.
“It’s very important that we eliminate their issues, or at least make them feel better and reduce their anxiety level by explaining everything. We let people know they are going to a place in which intelligent, motivated people are going to help them.”
Wolf is usually accompanied by a nurse, pilot, a patient, and sophisticated medical equipment. He travels in one of four helicopters stationed at Woodbine and it gives him a pathway to satisfaction. He is happy whenever patients return home from the hospital journey he took them on.
How he takes them forms its own dynamic. The helicopter generally flies at an altitude of 1,000 to 3,000 feet, and the view provides a unique perspective.
“It’s definitely an adrenaline boost,” he says. “Flying over Philly and seeing places I have been at hundreds of times, whether it’s the stadiums or the Battleship New Jersey, is pretty nice.
“On the way to a hospital, you might be happy that you can go where the patient needs to go, quickly, without being stuck in traffic. And coming back, well, you can get from Philly to Cape May in about 20 minutes, not an hour-and-a-half.”
At 36, Wolf approaches the prime years of an excellent career.
HOW HE ASCENDED TO THIS ROLE
Residents know Tyler Wolf as a 24-year veteran of the Avalon Beach Patrol, which he serves as a lieutenant and a paramedic.
They know he serves under brother Matt, the beach patrol chief, and that he previously worked for his father Murray, an Avalon Beach Patrol icon. Another brother, Erich, has won multiple rowing championships at the prestigious South Jerseys.
Tyler also has won multiple doubles and singles rowing races in lifeguard competitions.
The medical-service bug bit Wolf when he was the head of CPR for the beach patrol. He liked the additional benefits paramedics could provide people, so he headed west.
Wolf and the late Brett Fitzpatrick (a surf-dash champion for Avalon’s patrol) gained their paramedic licenses through the Texas Engineering Extension School at Texas A&M. That brought Wolf to AtlantiCare in 2013.
Murray Wolf has seen each of his driven sons gravitate to passions beyond lifeguarding. Matt has been a football, wrestling, and track coach at Middle Township High School. Erich is a vice principal at Lower Cape May High School.
Tyler became a highly advanced medical expert and did something for the ages in front of his father.
“I was in the jeep one day with him, patrolling the area, and we got a call about a guy who had stood up on his blanket and then fell over,” Murray Wolf recalls. “He had a heart problem and was maybe a block-and-a-half away.
“When Tyler got there, the man wasn’t breathing. They worked on him a few minutes and the guy still wasn’t responding. Then they shocked him twice. They put him in the ambulance that was headed for Atlantic City Medical Center.
“People around the situation thought the gentleman was dead. But the guy made it over to Atlantic City and a couple of days later, walked out of there. For me, it was amazing to see Tyler do that.”
“He was clinically dead,” Tyler remembers. “If you suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, there is maybe a 10 percent chance of survival. We kind of knew it was highly unlikely we would get this man back.
“But we shocked him with the defibrillators and between that and early CPR, we gave him his best shot. In the end, he woke up and started talking to us, which was great. Soon after that, he walked out of the hospital.”
Shortly thereafter, Wolf and his partners were thanked via letter from a doctor at Atlantic City Medical Center.
Several years back, we chronicled Tyler Wolf’s budding career path, highlighting his rise to become a paramedic. Since that time, he has, literally, grown wing.
Here’s an overview of Wolf’s new role:
• He juggles a weekly summer schedule of 36 hours between Thomas Jefferson University and the ABP. Wolf reports to Woodbine Airport for a 12- and 24-hour shift each week. Between the two jobs, he may not get a day off from May through August.
• About 20% of the calls to his unit are the 911 variety. Somebody suffered an injury, possibly a heart attack. His helicopter team will take victims to trauma centers in Galloway, Atlantic City, Cape May, or Camden, among other places.
• About 80% of the calls involve transporting a patient from one hospital or specialty place to another with specialized medical equipment. This is scheduled.
• Helicopter equipment usually includes a stretcher, cardiac monitor, ventilator, IV pumps, and an Isolette (a clear plastic enclosed crib that maintains a warm environment for a newborn and isolates the baby from gems).
• There are usually at least a couple of calls issued per shift.
• One must always plan for the unexpected. The team must quickly know what medications a heart patient usually takes, organize a schedule to administer vital-signs testing every 10 minutes and maintain a helicopter bedside manner.
Patients aren’t familiar with being in the back of a helicopter. Children may scream. An adult may sometimes be brought to the front seat as a reassuring presence.
The variables appear endless.
HOW THEY DO IT
And then there’s the aviation.
Wolf’s crew has landed on the rooftop of the Atlantic City Trauma Center, the ballfield on 12th Street in Avalon, and in many makeshift locations.
Once on site for 911 calls, he meets a local group, often an ambulance squad, to transport the victim to a helicopter, which can then whisk away the patient to the appropriate facility. The transporting between facilities is a little more predictable.
Wolf chuckles, recalling the intersection of those jobs in Avalon, where he’s a member of the volunteer fire department. In that role, along with ABP duties, he’s familiar with taking people from the beach or the scene of an accident to a helicopter.
On this day, it came full circle.
“We make the radio communications and talk to all the guys and then once we landed, I saw so many of my buddies from the fire department, which had set up the landing zone,” he remembers. “I see one of them and he says, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while, I didn’t know you were flying.’ So, I told him I’d switched over. I guess I am doing the same type of service in a different way.”
Positive results in high-stress situations produce valued memories. One was a heart-attack victim who had once flown for the Navy and knew every step Wolf’s transport crew was making. That enabled him to chat amicably amid the difficult circumstance.
Another involved an aviation issue last summer.
“We were going to pick up a patient after a car accident,” Wolf recalls. “I was flying with our pilot, a retired colonel from the Air Force. We were looking for a landing zone on our way to Avalon Honda.
“He’s looking for the landing zone and I spot a radio tower half a mile away from us that he did not see. Radio towers can be hard to see during the day, they are tall and thin. We were lower than 500 feet.
“I said there’s a radio tower at 12 o’clock [straight ahead]. He thanked me, and said I was one of the best navigators he had seen.”
Wolf relishes the added accomplishment linked to the new job. Some of it correlates with his beach-patrol position. Organizing a medical transport mirrors mapping out public safety for the legions of visitors to Avalon every summer. Working with a nurse may equate to working the lifeguard stand with a partner, or driving the jeep with a fellow lieutenant to traverse the grounds.
Preparation after a 911 call can provide the same adrenaline used for a beach rescue.
Wolf loves doing this, along with an inspiration provided at several thousand feet.
“I am starting to think I may want to put in the hours and get a certification to fly these helicopters,” he laughs.
The question is whether he can find the time.
For now, Wolf is content with one responsibility at a time.
