Pediatric Air Ambulance Transport

Jet Rescue transports infants, children and adolescents by dedicated air ambulance and by commercial medical escort, with crews and equipment configured for the child’s age and weight. We fly pediatric missions across Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, South America and internationally, for referring hospitals, PICUs, hospital case managers, insurers and families.

What changes when the patient is a child

Pediatric transport fails on details that do not exist in adult work. Drug doses are per kilogram and have to be recalculated, not estimated. Airway equipment has to be sized, and the size that fits a four-year-old does not fit a nine-year-old. Fluid margins are narrow in both directions. A child who is frightened and fighting the crew will desaturate faster than a sedated adult, and sedation in a child with an unprotected airway at altitude is its own decision.

The other thing that changes is the family. A pediatric mission that is clinically perfect and leaves the parents behind, uninformed, or unable to understand the crew is not a successful mission. Our crews brief parents in Spanish or English before departure and keep them briefed in the air.

How a pediatric mission is configured

• Age- and weight-appropriate airway and ventilation — pediatric circuits, cuffed and uncuffed tubes across the full size range, non-invasive support, and ventilators that deliver reliable small tidal volumes.
• Weight-based drug and infusion planning prepared before departure, with doses calculated and checked against the referring chart rather than improvised in the cabin.
• Pediatric monitoring — appropriately sized cuffs and probes, invasive pressures where indicated, capnography, and continuous temperature in the younger patients.
• Immobilization and restraint sized for the child, including specialized pediatric stretcher configuration and, for the smallest patients, a transport isolette.
• Blood products, point-of-care testing and specialized infusions arranged case by case with the referring and receiving teams.
• Bed-to-bed transfer from the referring unit to the receiving unit, with physician-to-physician handover at both ends.

The crew

Pediatric missions are flown by crews assembled for the case — typically a pediatric intensive care or emergency physician with a pediatric transport nurse or respiratory therapist, scaled to the child’s condition. A stable adolescent with a fracture and a ventilated toddler with status epilepticus are not the same mission and do not get the same crew. For newborns and premature infants, see our neonatal air ambulance service, which is configured differently again.

What we are asked to transport

Trauma, including head injury and polytrauma, to a pediatric trauma center; respiratory failure, severe asthma and bronchiolitis; status epilepticus and acute neurological presentations; sepsis and meningitis; congenital heart disease being moved for surgical correction or post-operatively; oncology patients travelling for or between treatment cycles; burns; post-operative transfers back to a hospital near the family; and children who fell ill or were injured while the family was travelling and need to get home.

A parent travels with the child

A parent or guardian flies with the child on essentially every pediatric mission we operate, and where the aircraft allows, both do. Where only one seat exists, we arrange the second parent’s commercial routing so the family is not separated by days. Where the child is a minor travelling without a parent, we require documented authorization from the legal guardian before departure, and we will not launch without it.

International pediatric transfers and repatriation

A large part of our pediatric work crosses a border: a child who needs a specialist center that does not exist where they are, a family that wants their child brought home to continue treatment near relatives, or an insurer repatriating a covered minor. These cases carry an administrative layer on top of the clinical one. We secure confirmed pediatric beds in most of the countries we serve and confirm the accepting physician in writing; where a child has no passport or no birth certificate, we coordinate with the family’s consulate for emergency travel documents and obtain the civil documents the receiving hospital and the carrier require, as part of the case.

Not every child needs a dedicated aircraft

A stable child who can tolerate a seat can often travel home safely on a commercial flight with a pediatric nurse or paramedic escort, at a fraction of the cost of an air ambulance. We say so when it is true. A mission coordinator opens the case and a flight physician reviews it, then recommends the mode the child actually needs — dedicated air ambulance, commercial stretcher, or medical escort.

What the referring team needs to send us

Age and weight, the working diagnosis and current condition, airway and ventilation status with settings, current infusions and doses, recent labs and imaging as relevant, vascular access, the receiving unit and accepting physician if identified, and who will travel with the child. A mission coordinator opens the case and a flight physician reviews it, then returns the crew and equipment plan, the aircraft, the route and a realistic departure window.

Arranging a pediatric transport

Call at any hour and ask for a mission coordinator. The case goes straight to a flight physician for clinical review — you are not routed through a booking desk. If the child should not fly yet, or should go by ground, or should wait for a therapy to take effect, we will tell you that first.