Safety deviation: The drift you don’t see coming part 1 | Ep 70

Welcome back to the Valor Flight Crew Podcast, hosted by ECHO and brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS and Valor Plus.

In this episode of the Valor Flight Crew Podcast, hosts Mike Fadale and Blake Shrider sit down with Bryan Evans, an experienced aviation and emergency medical services (EMS) leader, to explore what truly shapes a resilient safety culture. 

From the subtle drift of normalized deviations to the power of accountability, mindfulness, and open communication, this conversation examines how both organizations and frontline crew members contribute to safer operations.

Bryan shares powerful real-world stories that highlight the impact of transparency, psychological safety, and deliberate leadership. Together, the team discusses practical strategies for reinforcing positive behaviors, identifying cultural blind spots, and bridging the gap between written policies and day-to-day practice.

Safety isn't built by a policy manual, a checklist, or a single leadership decision. It's built every day through the choices we make, the conversations we have, and the standards we're willing to uphold—even when no one is watching. Whether you're a pilot, clinician, mechanic, communicator, or leader, safety culture belongs to all of us. The question isn't whether you influence it—it's how.

So join us and we look at safety from a different perspective and explore what it takes to cultivate a stronger, more resilient culture of safety in HEMS.

Thank you to our sponsors Airbus, Metro Aviation and Precision Aviation Group.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This week, the Bower Flight Crew Podcast welcomes Brian Evans to discuss safety deviation. We're more concerned about our feelings, our crew members' feelings, our patients' feelings, rather than looking at this from an objective, objective 30,000-foot view of is this the right thing in the right situation at the right time? And I hope that everyone out there that's listening to this does feel empowered enough to raise that question and make that decision when something really doesn't feel right. Welcome back to the Valor Flight Crew Podcast, hosted by Echo and brought to you by Vertical Helicast and Valor Plus. What really makes strong safety culture? In this episode, we sit down with helicopter air ambulance leader Brian Evans to explore the everyday choices, conversations, and behaviors that shape safer operations. From normalized deviations and accountability to psychological safety and leadership, Brian shares real-world lessons and practical strategies for building a more resilient culture. Whether you're a pilot, clinician, mechanic, communicator, or leader, this episode will challenge the way you think about safety and your role in creating it. Thank you to our sponsors, Airbus, Metro Aviation, and Precision Aviation Group.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Welcome to the Valor Flight Crew Podcast. Brought to you by Vertical Helicast, produced in partnership with Echo, every coast helicopter operations. The Valor Flight Crew Podcast promotes the personnel and life-saving equipment behind helicopter air ambulance services. Join hosts Mike Fidelic and Flight Driver for in-depth interviews and expert insights from air medical personnel, pilots, communications specialists and maintenance crews to play critical roles in airport emergency response.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Welcome back to the Valor Flight Crew Podcast. As always, your host, Mike Fidale, and Blake Strider. We've got a great podcast for you today. And I'm really excited about this one, Blake, because I feel while we've had a lot of discussions lately surrounding safety, we've had a lot of guests on, and there's been a very heavy safety focus for a lot of the conversations that we've had. I think that this one is going to kind of delve into some of the specifics that we can do on the crew level to really make sure that we're not allowing our safety culture and our safety priorities to deviate in any particular way. And uh so I'm really excited to be able to have this conversation because I think this is something that all of us will be able to relate to on the crew level uh or in the leadership level. No matter what role you have within HEMS, I think this is going to be a great conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Absolutely. Uh I think you said it best. We it's something that we can relate to when it comes to the things that the everyday things that we can do for ourselves that make a big impact throughout our entire programs, and then brings it to the next level to make this industry safer. And it and I know we've said this before in a lot of other podcasts, but it kind of it sounds cliche, but it starts with us, right? And and you can make a big difference with just one small change, you know, just one small thing of making sure we're we're seeing it through all the way, you know, when it comes to safety. It's not just these, it's it's not just the posters and the the parties and all the things that we do to to enhance that. It's actually doing it in the everyday little tasks, which I think is going to be a really good highlight for this conversation to really bring forward. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Well, then let's get into it. And without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guest today, Brian Evans. How are you today, Brian? I'm doing great, Mike. Blake, thanks for having me. Yeah, man, we're really super excited to have you on here and talk about this topic. Uh now I know this was a topic that was submitted for the Echo Philly conference. It's coming up uh in September. So hopefully we'll see all of our listeners there. But this is a topic looking through all the topics that came in, one that really struck as very valid and pertinent and things that we need to discuss, not just on a conference level, but really on a global level. This is something that is so incredibly important. And uh, we're super grateful that you're willing to come on and have this podcast with us and have this discussion. So thank you for joining us. If you don't mind, Brian, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about your uh your background and flight experience?

SPEAKER_05 4:26

You know, probably like a lot of people listening started in EMS uh in high school. Uh live in eastern Pennsylvania, about an hour north of Philadelphia, grew up a little more north of that. But um, you know, a lot of uh volunteer EMS back then. Uh so got that, you know, kind of got the bug early on, EMT school, moved to Philadelphia for paramedic school, did my training there, ended up kind of uh halfway in between where I grew up and where I went to school. You know, done a lot of uh various things, hospital-based EMS-wise, a little bit of everything from aside from the street education, uh out EMS outreach, EMS liaison marketing. Uh, and then in 2015, had uh an opportunity to come to Medavac. Um and, you know, Blake talked about cliche before, and you know, this is gonna be the most cliche answer, but you know, as a dream come true. Um, you know, my dad used to take us to field behind my elementary school to see the helicopter lands. It was Medavac, and uh that's the team that I had the privilege and opportunity uh to join, work with Mike for a short amount of time when I came in. Uh so came in doing business development outreach, a little bit of an untraditional. I didn't actually come straight into uh clinical, obviously was um probably about a 15-year paramedic at that point. Uh came in and then uh pretty quickly uh had the bug and was able to complete uh clinical orientation, started doing that. So I flew pretty regularly a couple times a week, uh up until late 2022, uh, when it unfortunately I was in an accident that has not led me uh full clearance to get back. So I'm a little more removed from the uh the line directly these days, but um try to stay as close to it through through our team as I can. So I currently serve as the director uh of our program with you know kind of everything oversight clinical operations business, you name it.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

I definitely plenty of experience in the industry. And yeah, we we did get to work together for a very short time. I don't know that we actually had any shifts together, that we got to cause any havoc together out there on the street. We did not. We did not. But yeah, I certainly remember uh seeing you there and and nothing but the utmost respect for for you and your program, uh some amazing clinicians and uh really what gave me my start in the air medical industry, and uh super grateful to have gotten to know all those folks there. So, Brian, do you mind just telling us a little bit about maybe a safety story, whether that be positive or negative, that's been in your career, where the culture really either made or broke the outcome of that event?

SPEAKER_05 6:53

Yeah, I think the one that sticks in my mind when that question comes up is uh going back, I I think it's to the 2024 time frame. Uh, and we had uh sort of two or three incidents in succession involving a particular base that were not at all really related. Um, it wasn't one was like the other, but they kind of happened in succession. So we ended up deciding that it was time to do a little bit something different, did a uh safety stand down, had some open discussions. And as we reflected back on that, what really stuck out to me was just the the transparency and you know, it was obvious everybody had a shared goal. But we started to peel back the layers, and it was things that everybody, you know, everybody thought went well, there was no issue. And as we started to look back at it, there was a cowling that came open uh upon landing, landed safely, no issue. Crew took the patient inside. Uh, and it was sort of viewed as a maintenance event by everybody involved at the time. The crew, um, the on-duty administrator that was notified. Crew said they were fine, the point that actually there was uh a need for a ground run while they were waiting for maintenance to get there. And the crew's like, yeah, no problem, we'll go on the ground run. And they, you know, went back, did that, came back, eventually got back to base. And it wasn't really until sort of the the dust settled and you started to look at it from more of the the higher level view that you're like, well, that was probably a terrible idea in in retrospect. And the one thing that really came from that that we found was, you know, in other sort of, you know, whether you want to call it a near miss or uh, you know, a challenging circumstance, everybody says to the crew, well, hey, you you know, are you good with this? Are you ready to go back in service? And, you know, I think it's natural for everybody to sort of immediately say yes, people want to get the job done, want to keep going. And it really, that was one example that kind of showed us of how we we really need to pull that back and need to have more of a standard approach and say, okay, no, you are this is a timeout we're calling on your behalf. Let's let the dust settle, let's come up with a return plan. And again, that's something we use on, you know, could be the most uh more that it's not just a a near miss or big picture, but just some of those little kind of things that pop up from time to time. So that's one that's really stuck with me is the, you know, everybody thought it nobody had an issue with it at the time, and it wasn't really until afterwards when everything settled, adrenaline, you know, the the uh the culture that we all just want to respond, come up with a plan, get it done, started to settle that we were like this should have gone differently.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

You know, I think you bring up a really good point with bringing up that example of, you know, uh all of us that do this job, like we're here because we want to go do the things that we're trained to do, right? We want to go out and help, we want to go and respond. And so it's so interesting that it we hear you know, through a lot of the discussions that we've had in the past, is we hear that a lot where we're everybody's doing the the we're all doing the steps, you know, we're all doing the things, we're we're taking that that safety stand down, we're taking that higher level look, we're doing all the things, and you mentioned how everybody was questioned and like a round table, like everybody was transparent, so there wasn't anything being held back, but it still came to almost that resolution of well, nobody has an issue. We identified there was a problem. What were the steps? What were the processes that that came about? But yet there was still that underlying like, well, this still happened, and how do we prevent that? So I think it's so interesting that and and Mike, correct me if I'm wrong. From everybody that we've talked to that's been on our show and and even at conferences, everybody does that, we're all doing the right things and we're all taking the right steps to make sure that we're safe, but there's still this other little part that where we're doing the right things, but sometimes the the small or preventable incidents are are still happening. So if from that retrospect or from that example, can you talk about just were you able to make a larger change within your program as far as just the general safety culture from that moving forward where you were able to say, hey, I know everybody's good to go, but we're still holding back. We want to make sure we've exhausted the process. We want to make sure that not only is everybody good, but that the process has we've done everything that we can and been able to move forward. So would you say that there was some some either better or good things that came to enhance the safety culture at your program from that?

SPEAKER_05 11:30

100%, without a doubt. Um, I I think that, you know, while it was a stressful time for everybody, it it was uh hard to say this, but like one of the better things that could happen, or at least we made uh I think we did a solid job making the best of it and having it truly kind of change things looking ahead. Uh just the uh level of I think transparency, the comfortable conversations that everybody was having, you know, as as a leader, you go into some of those and you know, you can feel it has a little bit of a lion's den feel to it. And you, you know, you kind of have the weight of everything. You know, I I always say that, and this isn't, man, we're we're rolling with the cliches today. I'm not off to a good start. I think I'm at three, I think I'm at three to ten minutes here, but you know, like start a drinking game over here. The crews are, you know, the the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night and the first thing I wake up in the morning. Like every morning I wake up and realize that my phone didn't ring with that call. Like that's I I should be, you know, celebrating that more, you know, and and thinking, okay, this is gonna be, you know, this day's already starting off on the right, on the right foot. So yeah, I think I went into that a little um, again, a little, you know, not sure how that was gonna go. And it really, I think was great for everybody. It was, you know, we try to have even uh before that and definitely since then a very open, transparent conversation. Um, we ironically in that process had uh a pilot orienting uh and it was I think his second day. Um and he was so part of this and he was listening in, and he said to the pilot that he was orienting with, he's like, You guys are allowed to ask these questions, which on one hand is awesome. It was like, you know, that's somebody that had outside experience. On the other hand, it's like, man, as an industry, we still got to do better if if that's what we're um, you know, and we are far from perfect. Like, you know, uh like everybody, we've got room to improve and it don't get it, we don't get it right every single time. But I think the one thing that I, you know, that I feel very comfortable is is that we, you know, we provide a lot of avenues. There's that opportunity for people to be able to speak up and ask questions. I, you know, I think crew are at the point now where if somebody says to them something in passing or shift change is like, hey, you you gotta speak up about that. Like that's we we can't let that one go. That needs to be that needs to be brought forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

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SPEAKER_03 14:34

But I think that that's what's so important about what we've just been talking about for the past couple of minutes is that, you know, we get to this point where we kind of normalize some of these little things along the way. We're like, oh, it's no big deal. We just brush under the rug. Oh, it's no big deal. Uh, you know, I wouldn't I don't think twice about it. I'm fine, I'm good to go, I'm ready to get back into this. And and I don't think that we take the time to really dissect some of these situations and look at that root cause and how could we have prevented these things and how can we improve upon it in the future? Um, because we're just it's at the end of the day, we're like, it's no big deal, right? And and look, we know we all get into this knowing that this is an inherently dangerous business. Like we we all accept some level of risk choosing to work in uh in in the hems industry. We know that. Uh but it's about how much risk are we willing to accept, not just for ourselves, but for our organization and our patients. And that's where I think sometimes those little things that we all think about as no big deal, or hey, we got lucky and you brush it off and you just keep on going, right? Those little things are the things that we need to pay more attention to. Because those little things are it, you know, it's like to create the medical analogy, it's like, okay, well, a TIA is that warning sign of like, hey, there's a stroke coming. And if we don't pay attention to that TIA, you know, here, here we go down this bad path. And so that's where I wanted to why I found this this podcast and this topic so interesting is because I feel that as an industry, we've started to drift a little bit. And and I'm curious, Brian, from your perspective, you know, seeing and and and knowing a lot of the the industry itself, do you feel as though that is an accurate statement and that we have started to drift a lift a little bit with our safety culture? And and if if that is the case, like what what are we, where where did we go wrong? Where do we start moving in that direction and why?

SPEAKER_05 16:36

Yeah, I I think that's great comments. Back to the uh the TIA thing. I I think as an example, when you know, if people are not familiar with the concept of normalization of deviants or some of those principles, uh, which by the way, I I didn't invent that. I I didn't write that. That was, you know, we can talk a little bit later about you know how I first sort of came to awareness about it. Um but uh it's it'd be like in the TIA example, you know, not not going through and blood being told you need to manage your blood pressure, but not doing it, you know, all those things. And then at the end of it being surprised that it escalated to to a stroke. That's really kind of what normal deviance is, is that if we if we just take all these, you know, the other pieces through the process for granted, that's that's how that's how we end up. So I think it's even deeper than just drift when you think about the industry. I think a lot of it is just society and the world that we've come to live in for so many reasons, whether it be distractions, stress, whatever that may be, I think that's where that all starts to uh sort of starts to to factor in with some of the drift.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

You know, Brian, you you talk about the the the we're all human beings, right? Human factor, right? And I think as long as humans are part of the equation, you know, that there's always gonna be those that element of like that there's choices, you know, and like you said, there's distractions, we have so many things that are coming at us. And and and correct me if I'm wrong, when I first started flying, you know, I I felt like I was just I had those blinders kind of on, you know, where it was like I I didn't really have the peripheral vision. I was just I I took it a day at a time and I I just focused on training and learning and doing everything, but I I kind of just took it a day at a time. And you you're you're taking in so much info and so many things as you're coming up, so to speak, you know, in the the world of you know, hems and aviation. And then like after a while, you kind of like, huh? Did I did I do that? You know, did I did I really go through with that? And you know, the the example I think that stands out to me, and we talk about this normalization of deviance, is is always like the it's always the heavy hitters when you're doing briefs or whatever walk arounds, you know. I think they're probably one of the biggest examples of this normalization of deviance. When and when we talk about it, right? And and Mike, we how many episodes have we had where it's it's it's the same scenario? And I think anybody listening can relate to that. You have that like kind of a crazy, crazy train patient. You finally get this your complicated patient turned over at the hospital, and you go back and you're trying to like just like make sense of what's just kind of happened, and you're in that like kind of fog for a moment, and you're putting the helicopter kind of back together, and you're like, you know what, um there's so many things to clean up and restock, we're just gonna have to do that when we get back to base. So you kind of shut everything up, and then you you do your walk around, and then you just get in and you go back, you know. But like one of those things that could happen, a cowling comes open, maybe a belt sticks out, you know, and and then it comes down to well, why did this happen? You're like, oh, well, you know, I was thinking of so many things. I just had this crazy flight and you know, all these things, but that's going to happen in this industry. We know we're gonna have complicated patients, we know we're gonna have a lot of things coming at us, and it's it's just to me that it's that one thing that stands out, and I think that is I always I and I'm I'm human, so I'm wholeheartedly admitting I try to do my best to do the best walk-around that I can, but I would be lying if I said I do a perfect walk around every time. No, it just doesn't always happen, and I think because it's there's so many other little factors, and we're making these almost subconscious choices because we're just we're going through those motions, right? You're just kind of ticking the boxes, okay. Offloaded the patient. I threw everything in the aircraft, I think I got everything. I've left oxygen bottles behind, I've left a bag, you know, behind because I set it outside or I had to take it inside to try to clean something off, you know. And it's just those little things. And when you go back and look at, well, Blake, why did you leave the bag at the hospital? That was a great question. Uh, because I was cleaning it and then I got distracted by trying to take something else out, and then I put it back together. You know, it's just to me, that's the one example, but it leads to like those other things that kind of add up. And I guess, you know, I don't really know how, like, how do we combat those things and how do we kind of make or break that safety culture, or how do we really implement those, those things to make it more preventable? Is it just more self-accountability? Is there other processes that we put in place? Like, so how do we kind of combat? We know these things happen, but how do we, I guess, quote unquote, how do we fix that, or how do we improve that so that it doesn't happen? We get on a pod and we bring awareness to it, right?

SPEAKER_05 21:38

This will solve it all.

SPEAKER_06 21:41

We are trying to solve the world probably.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

I mean, you know, I I make light of that, but in all seriousness, like, you know, I I think uh platforms like this bring so much awareness to uh to all of this. But there's just so many there's so many things in there. I think the walk around and a couple other things you talked about are the perfect example for this that's not for me. Maybe some listeners that aren't, you know, fully kind of grasping or really kind of buying into what we're trying to talk about. But so my daughter played travel softball, she plays in college now, and one of her coaches used to say earlier on, control your controllables. And I think that's if we were to sum up the s what you were talking about, is you know, there's times that we're really good at focusing on what's within our control. And there's a lot of times where we're really good on focusing on anything but what's in our control. And I think that's where, you know, I I always use the example if I'm like talking with new crew or something like that with walk arounds. You know, if you're walking out to the aircraft trying to, you know, saying to yourself, this shouldn't be our flight, this should be base three's flight. I I don't understand why we're going on this. Nobody's had nobody said that. Nobody has said never, it's never happened. It's pure just you know, hypothetical. Um, you know, the phone's never rung with somebody asking you that question as they're walking out to the helicopter where you're saying, like, exactly. Isn't this your flight? Let's let's, you know, this is uh let's get it done and we'll talk about it after, you know, we'll work on improving the process afterwards. But you know, I think that's just a perfect example of you know being able to, there's there's no way that if if you're if you're going out there with thinking about the end of shift, thinking about any of those types of things, which are all natural, that's the human factor to it all. We all have that. Everybody is worried about like, oh man, the you know, the dogs are gonna they've been in their cage for you know 13 hours today, I'm gonna be late getting home. All those things just come into your mind, but we have to look for ways um wherever we can to just uh stay locked in and get 100% focused. I think the other part of the example, like you were started talking about walk arounds, and then we're talking about the bags, et cetera, is how often do we take, and this is really, I think, what the theory of normalization to deviance is is when you know we talked about drift a little bit, is you know, what are those kind of little shortcuts that we start to take, start to do every day, nothing bad happens. So, you know, the example is you got to put the bag back together, the pumps need to be charged. So the pumps are laying on the stretcher, the bag's there, bag's not secured, you hit a little bit of turbulence, somebody eats a bag or a pump now. It's a prime example. I think it's even worse uh on the ground side. For those of us that came up in EMS, we never used to secure anything, nothing. You know, now we've got you know you know, specialized mounts that everything's got a place. And I think we really take that for granted until the first time somebody slams on the brake. How about a seat belt, whether it be in your POV or in the back of an ambulance, you know, you go flying up and have a near miss. I mean, I I have former colleagues that are, you know, haven't been able to return to work from a, you know, those types of things where sudden stop, et cetera. So it's not always possible, but when it's possible, let's let's own those, all those type of little things that I think we can we can take for granted.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

And I love having these conversations because you know you'll notice, granted, we've been talking for you know 20 some minutes now. And none of these things are things we've talked about that are out of any provider's control. These are little things that can be done every single day. And yet somehow we subconsciously choose or consciously choose to not do some of these things. And I think that's what what I hope that having these conversations will do is to remind people on a larger platform of these little things matter. These little things are are the things that that are going to save our butt at the end of the day. And it doesn't have to be anything big or grand. And and I look back in my career, and you know, I'll I'll again be the first to admit, I was not always the best at always doing my walk around, or I'd be like walking around and, you know, yeah, half looking at things kind of deal because I'm thinking about all this other stuff, right? And I find that now being in this career for uh I think 14 years, I find I am more OCD about the type of walk around that I do right now. I am more OCD about the type of care that I provide and how I set myself up for success. I am more OCD about the functions that I have sitting in the front or the back of the helicopter with whatever role I'm in at that particular time. And it's because I've gotten lucky so many times that I've now got this system in place that I'm not willing to deviate from.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

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SPEAKER_03 26:52

For me, when when we land at at our facility and we're doing a hot offload with our helicopter, uh, there is, and I'm the one that's buttoning up the helicopter and getting everything ready. I am physically out there pointing at each of the latches that I'm looking at, pointing at the doors, making sure there's nothing sticking out. And I do that in it looks like sometimes like the pilots are looking at me like, what are you doing? And it's because I'm I'm typically I'm counting all the different things that I need to, looking in all the particular areas that I need to, and then I will finally give them my thumbs up when I'm good to go and they're good to depart. And I think it's those little things like that at the end of the day. I think they appreciate that amount of OCD coming from me. But it's these processes that I've put in place over time because of the amount of times that I've caught myself. And and that catching myself in that that, you know, deviating from what should be done, that actually kind of internally pisses me off. Right. Like I, I, I like I can't believe that I've let myself get to that point. And I'm listening I'm still far from perfect, but it's sometimes just those little things, it's that little attention to detail that at the end of the day can make or break anything that that is going on in front of us. And so that's why I think we need to have these conversations. And and a lot, I think a lot of this stuff is on that personal level, right? Like these are things that, you know, me, Blake, or you, Brian, have the ability to control in every time we walk out the door, get in the helicopter, and go on that transport. Every single time we have the ability to control these things. And I think that it's so important that we take that time and not cut those corners and not accept that deviance from the risk that is in front of us because of how important they can be in the grand scheme of things. But I think that a lot of times these things get blamed on culture, right? And so I think that's where you know we've had a lot of discussion discussions and uh a couple podcasts already. Uh, I think back to one specifically with Russell Griffin talking about culture um and also talking about our identity crisis that we have in the Hems agency right now, our industry right now. And I think to so many of these instances where I'm like, you know, yes, there is a culture of how we are supposed to do things at X, Y, or Z organization, but that culture doesn't need to define how you practice those safety mechanisms, right? Uh and so I'm curious from your opinion, when we talk about safety culture versus that um that uh personal initiative, or when we talk about that personal accountability, which is either more important or which one makes or breaks, or are we talking about like this is a top-down kind of thing? This is something that you as leadership need to be setting forth for the rest of the cruise, or is this something that should be more of a bottom-up and coming from the cruise side of things to continue to push that safety culture forward?

SPEAKER_05 29:50

Yeah, I mean, there's so much in there, Mike, but it it has to be multidisciplinary, bi-directional, or it will fail. I think there, you know, you can make a lot of arguments either way, top down, bottom up, but at the end of the day, you know, if I go back and think, like, you know, obviously I I'm in a you know in a leadership position now, so I view it a lot more from that, and what my personal responsibility is the stuff that keeps me up at night from from that level. But if I think back to other times of my career where um, you know, I I was in not in that same position, like what's your why? Like you you have to bring it back to, well, I want to be safe, I want to go home, and that's why I'm going to do XYZ. You know, I I I think sometimes I view this a little bit differently, and I don't know if it was because, you know, I wasn't like uh just a three or four it, and you know, this isn't a dig by any stretch on that, but I I wasn't just a three, four, five year paramedic or nurse going in. I, you know, I had worked in EMS for like probably 15 years, done some leadership stuff already, came in with a different view. But like I just when I entered HEMS and started learning about what a safety culture is, I was like super excited. Like, wait, we could speak up. Like, you know, it just totally resonated me, the ideas of like a high reliability organization and you know, breaking down the co kind of normal hierarchies of of whatever may be there in organization or structure. Um, and I just think about like I think of all the, you know, we think at times we have opportunity to do better in in the industry, which we certainly do, but you think about taking that out to EMS, the fire service, all our other public safety partners, you know, and it it's hard because it we a lot of us come from backgrounds where everything's sort of this paramilitary organization where it is, you know, there's a structure, gives the orders, execute on the orders, you know, kind of come kind of come back. So, but it, you know, it it has to be everybody kind of on the same uh on the same on the same sheet of music. Now there's so many other kind of pieces to to how we build that. And I think that you know, I think everybody throws culture around that word around. But like, I don't know, what does it even mean? Like, you know, it it's it feels like it's become kind of a buzzword. And like, you know, I think there's the argument that you see made from time to time is, you know, just because something hasn't happened within one organization, does that actually mean they have a better safety culture than an organization that had, you know, a catastrophic incident? Like, how do we measure culture? How do we really know the effectiveness of that? So um I I I think it it and I don't know that those are questions we'll ever really, really answer. And certainly I, you know, I'm not Russell that was able to, you know, write a dissertation and do do the research. That's not kind of my my forte, but you know, the work that he did is is you know kind of magnificent if you think if you think about it. And you know, it's one way to start to tie some of these things together and actually be able to, you know, put some sort of maybe guidance that someday we could have a better way to objectively measure, are we safe, are we not safe?

SPEAKER_02 33:06

You know, I I I love that you brought up the the culture and like you know, it's a buzzword, you know, and and we use it so much, you know, and it's almost like we we've all we've almost just I don't know, diminished the the meaning or value behind it, right? You know, and because we we like to talk about it because I feel like people like it's it's almost like branding almost, like it's so you could use it and say it's all encompassing and we're doing so many good things, but you know, uh Brian, when you were talking and and Mike about you know, there there's the human factors in the things, and it and I don't know why my brain works this way, but I I went back to I I was having this thought of when like years ago we hired a dog trainer to help us with our dogs, and one of the things that that that they were telling me was, you know, you have to be able to be uh disciplined and you have to do the same thing each and every time. And it was relating to why my dogs were just like so excited and and just so jumping to get out of the crate, and it was like you could not let them out of the crate until they were calm, and then you could open the crate and then they would come out, and then the same thing was to go through each door threshold in my house was you went first and then invited the dog through. And I'm and I'm thinking about he's like you have to do this every time, it's about repetition and training. And I'm thinking, it's gonna take me an hour in the morning just to get to my car, you know, like because of how they're gonna keep doing it. And I was like, Well, well, how do I do that? You know, and it then the he was just like, Well, then you're gonna have jumping dogs, you know, or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 34:52

And I was like, uh, that's crazy to me. I I can't laugh at this, Blake, because it's painful for me because I I can't talk about what I've invested in dog training that I have not followed through on and have, you know, basically now kangaroos through door thresholds.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

So you know what I'm saying, though. You get because it was like you you you have to be disciplined, you have to do the same thing every every time. So, Mike, aside from us having a checklist for everything that we do, right? How do I shut the helicopter door? Well, here's a checklist on how to do it, right? How do I use the radio? Here's a checklist on how to do that. You know, and and here's the thing are checklists going to be the the end all be all of safety? No, we still have aviation incidents that still happen, and the entire aviation industry is rooted in checklists, right? So we know that's not the final answer, but the common denominator is human beings and like you said, the choices and things that we made, but that just really stuck out with me of like control the controllable things, right? So, like I know that if I did my walk around and I get in the front of the helicopter and I'm belted in, ready to go, and I and I can say to myself, did I do everything the best that I could, making sure I did it right as I'm sitting here now? If I once we lift and something happens, can I seriously look back and say, I did everything I could to the best of my ability? And if I can answer that question, yes, maybe that's a step in the right direction. I don't know. But I just think when when we're coming and discussing the human factors versus some of the system factors that are out there, I I don't know what it is. Are there things that slowly break down? Did we get lucky, like you said, Mike? Or you know, how does that how do we embrace that that culture type buzzword and not have it be that buzzword, but it's truly something that we do every day.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

But I think that that's exactly what Brian was saying before, and that this has to be bi-directional, right? And in that there needs to be this standard set by that that leadership team of what this culture is going to be, but then the actual carrying out of that culture has to be accountable on the crew level. And and I'll never forget I had my ahoma aha moment. Um, you know, when I it was actually my very first flight. I'll remember it, you know, till this day, and and probably my entire career with Tim Hickey, Mark Walk, and Steve Gray. And we went out for an MVA patient, it was a simple patient, just needed to get to the trauma center. And I remember thinking to myself, I was so impressed at uh the communication that was happening, not just amongst the crew, but with the pilot with ATC, with the crew interacting with the referring and receiving agencies, like all of these things playing together, the communication that was behind it and the culture that they created by doing that and having those open conversations. And we got back to base and did a debrief afterwards. And I was like, is this what it's like all of the time? And and the response that I got from them was yes. Like you should be able to have those open, honest conversations, be able to look both internally and externally to figure out what went well, what didn't go well, how can you how you can improve upon things. And you need to be deliberate in how you're going to continue to move forward to maintain that safety. And and that was a defining moment for me in this industry. And and you know, I walked away from that first shift, thinking to myself, you know, this is the best job in the world for a multitude of reasons. Uh, but one of them was that culture that was displayed to me at that time. And I think that that was something that really ingrained in how I chose to be as a provider and as a clinician and moving forward and trying to do that with each of the crews that I worked with along the way, because I thought that it was so impressive how there's so many moving parts in what we do every single time we get in that helicopter, that if we don't be deliberate, if we don't communicate well, if we don't establish that culture up front and with the right framework, like something is bound to happen. And so I just thought that was really one of those defining moments for me. But it has to be both ways. And you have to be able to say and set the standard, I think, from the the top down. And and Brian, certainly correct me here if you feel differently, but set that standard from the top down, but then expect that accountability from your crew level to bring that right back up to you.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Thanks to our sponsor, Airbus. Airbus provides the most efficient helicopter solutions to its customers who serve, protect, save lives, and safely carry passengers in demanding environments. Its civil and military helicopters are flying all over the world, making missions possible. Visit Airbus.com for more information.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

Yeah, no, and I I mean, there's a couple things about your example I want to say before I forget, but you know, your first flight was with legitimately a hundred plus years, uh over a hundred years of experience. Yeah. And as we think about longevity in the industry changing very much, one of the things that our team has been trying to start to talk about is, you know, we know that we have a larger group that's going to be retiring in the next five, 10 year period, somewhere in between there. How do we make sure that that knowledge, that experience, gets passed down? And how do we have that first that person that walks through the door on their first day be able to handle that call just like Tim and Mark and Steve did that day? But I also think on the flip side, I remember one of my first times flying with Steve. Like, if I had had a concern about weather in my early days, there is zero chance, as I reflect back, I would have totally told myself, well, this guy is legitimately a legend. He's been doing it forever, he wrote the book, pioneered this. I he he obviously knows that the weather's okay. And you know, where how do we close that gap too? Where where do you, you know, to it's natural to be that brand new person that you're gonna be hesitant to speak up no matter what the culture says, it's uh, you know, what what's built, no matter how many times it could be on, you know, it could be above every door at the base, it could be printed on the, you know, above the gauges in the helicopter that you're staring at. It it's still just human nature. It it's so difficult to to break that down.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

But a lot of this conversation, and Mike, you said it was being deliberate. And I think that's gosh, probably the probably the number one part of the things that we that we should do with ourselves is is being deliberate in how we approach and do our day-to-day jobs, doing the tasks and and following through. And like you said, and not being afraid to speak up. I feel like this is my you know coming up on 14 years flying, I'm not afraid to speak up, but I still find it sometimes a little difficult to have the difficult conversation, not so much with other people, but I I think sometimes with myself. I feel like it it plays in my head, but then it doesn't come out. Like I can look in the mirror and then it it it takes a little bit, right? Like, like it takes some time for me to be like maybe I wasn't really doing my best because I I almost wonder like where does that pendulum kind of swing, right? Like when you're new, you don't really know, like you know a lot of stuff, but yet you're learning so many new things, right? So you're just like kind of taking it all in, and then you reach a point after I don't know, four or five years, and you're like, oh, okay, I feel kind of comfortable. And then it kind of drags on. Now maybe drag on isn't the right word, it it continues forward. Um but then you just get to this point where you're like, I've done a lot of things, I've seen a lot of stuff, but yet there's still a bunch of stuff I don't know, and there's still probably a lot of things that I'm still have yet to see. So where do you get to this point where you can just really have that good conversation? I know it's hard. I'm I know I'm hard on myself, but I feel, and maybe anyone else out there listening can relate, or Mike or Brian, like I feel like sometimes I I still have a hard time. Like, it's not that I admit like what I'm not doing well, or maybe something didn't go right, but I feel like it's hard for me to really hold myself like fully accountable. I'm not saying I'm like grounding myself or like you know, no pizza for a week, you know, or you know, something like that. But but really defining that, like, hey, listen, Blake, like you didn't really do well on that, and you you didn't really fully do that checklist or that bag, right? And then here's why. And I don't know, I I I feel like Like it's the that's these signs of drift, right? It's those things and recognize, and I know I recognize, but how how can me or other people, how can we be better about following through and and keeping ourselves accountable and being deliberate with the things that we do every day to hopefully prevent things from happening?

SPEAKER_05 44:20

How often are we our own worst enemy in a lot of these, a lot of these kind of situations? You know, I I I use the example of, you know, it's an hour and a half before shift change, call goes out, weather's, you know, on maybe uh maybe trending towards marginal, and you, you know, you think to yourself, you look at your watch, well, you know, if if if we do this by air, we're gonna get out and get home close to close to quit in time. Right. If we if we say no to if I speak up and say no to this and we do it by ground, it's gonna be two hours after quit in time when I get back. And you know, it is natural. Anybody that says that there's not a point of when that comes in their mind is, you know, is probably in in denial or not being uh truthful with themselves. So, but you know, there's no easy solution for that. But I think the biggest thing, um, at least that I feel is that there's open communications and that you're you're talking about it, that that there's acknowledgement that we don't all get it right every single time, that we are that extremely self self-reflective, that despite good intentions, things can happen. And how do we just again back to our theme, you know, you mentioned again the control of the controllables. How do we make sure we're doing the little things right that then start to match up? You know, we talk about the uh the Swiss cheese model, which, you know, again, sort of like culture can be a buzzword. And I think it's a great model as we're teaching people the sort of the concept, but it it feels like also sometimes be like, well, the holes were lining up. It's like I don't know that that's really how we should be we should be uh defining that, but we should use it on the flip side of, you know, if we do all the little things right, that's uh removing one of those holes from even being there. If that first hole isn't there because we did the 12 little things before that, right? Well, it's hard to get all the holes lined up if that first one doesn't pop up.

unknown 46:17

Right.

SPEAKER_05 46:18

But I, you know, it it when I you know hear a preceptor, you know, telling their new hire, like, listen, if if you're not comfortable, it doesn't matter even if everybody else is. Like you just speak up, say no, and you know, leadership's gonna be okay with that. They're going to support you. Now I think there's some challenges from a leadership perspective on how we you know sort of execute uh and and build on that, how sometimes maybe at three o'clock in the morning, uh the the tone in which I you know acknowledge your um saying of that, which again, we talk about human nature, you know, on the line side, it's the same thing, you know, on the leadership side as well. But you know, if you're new, you spoke up to me and I was a little gruff at three o'clock in the morning, or I had a deep sigh or something like that. Did I really empower you the next time that you're gonna feel like, hey, Brian was great about that? Um, you know, so how do we build again that conversation of recognizing, you know, I try to say it like, hey, at three o'clock in the morning, you know, in the heat of the moment, there might be a point of this that you feel that it wasn't, you know, well perceived or received by me, but we assure you that this is what we want you to do. And you know, again, that comes up to having that conversation outside of the moment before and reiterating after of the like, hey, no matter what what I say, you know, I I the recent podcast, I I believe multiple times I've heard Mike reference his partners carrying the emergency safety snacks for him. Oh, for sure. Um, you know, like it's sort of the same thing. Like, please forgive me for what I said when I was hangry. It's just, you know, kind of the same thing. This is really what I meant all the time. And, you know, if once in a while I I uh it didn't come out right, uh ignore that.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

And I but I think so, you know, there there's a point that that my manager uh says all the time that really just hits home and it and it really hits differently now with me being in my new role, in that he never wants to hear about a safety concern after the fact. And and I think that that's something that really is is important to to dissect for a second because we need to take that time to stop and think about things for ourselves. In that sometimes we're asked to do stuff that maybe doesn't make sense or isn't is is is throwing our spidey senses up or doesn't just quite sit right. And and if we don't take that extra second to really think through those situations and we we knowingly put ourselves into a place where that was not the safest decision we could have made, I think we're doing everyone a disservice. And I think that that's where it's not just that personal accountability, but it's that crew accountability and it's that that overall culture accountability for that organization that you need to look at, like, why was this not brought up? And I think that you know, that was something that I I would have always been very impressed by within the industry is is the willingness to do that. But sometimes it just takes that one person saying that phrase at first or bringing up that question or having that concern. And I think that's where the challenge comes a lot of times is that people don't necessarily feel uncomfortable or that they feel uncomfortable saying something like that. Not because they don't feel that it's the right thing to do, but because they're they're afraid of letting their team down, they're afraid of letting themselves down, they're afraid of letting their patients down. And sometimes we do need to just speak up and say the thing that needs to be said. But I I think at the end of the day, we don't we we're more concerned about our feelings, our crew members' feelings, our patients' feelings, rather than looking at this from an objective, objective 30,000-foot view of is this the right thing in the right situation at the right time? And I hope that everyone out there that's listening to this does feel empowered enough to raise that question and make that decision when something really doesn't feel right. And I hope that every single person that's listening out there has a leadership team that is willing to listen to them because I agree that this is something that absolutely has to go both ways, and that we can't continue to accept our little variances from what the norm should be. That's just not okay. And I guess I'm curious from your point of view, then Brian, do you feel that this accountability that we have? Like, so who has the higher accountability at the end of the day? Do you feel that that comes more from the leadership perspective, or do you feel that that's more on the crew perspective? Like, where does that accountability meter land between those two? Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Valor Flight Crew Podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe to hear more stories that promote the personnel and equipment behind the missions in public safety aviation. Lastly, stand by for a message from our sponsors.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

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SPEAKER_00 51:59

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SPEAKER_03 52:58

As we wrap up this episode, we'd like to thank Brian Evans for sharing his experience, insights, and perspective on what it truly means to build and sustain a culture of safety. One of the biggest takeaways from today's conversation is that safety culture isn't something that exists in a mission statement or a policy manual. It's reflected in the actions we take every day. It's in the standards we uphold, the conversations we're willing to have, and the accountability we accept for ourselves and our teams. Whether you're in the cockpit, the cabin, the communication center, or the boardroom, every interaction is an opportunity to strengthen or weaken the culture around you. Creating safer operations doesn't happen through a single initiative or leadership directive. It happens through deliberate behaviors, open communication, continuous learning, and the courage to speak up when something doesn't seem right. The strongest safety cultures are built by teams that remain vigilant, challenge complacency, and never stop looking for ways to improve. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Valor Flight Crew Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your colleagues and crew members. Together, we can continue advancing the conversations that make public safety aviation safer for our patients, our teams, and our communities. Until next time, stay safe, everyone, and be the culture you expect in others and your organizations.