Life Flight launches emergency helicopter service for injured police dogs

A police dog can help solve crimes — tracking suspects, illegal substances or even weapons. They chase down criminals, search for missing persons and protect police officers.

When police dogs spring into action, they are treated with the same respect as two-legged officers.

“We refer to them as our partners,” said Kristin Uhlin, lead K-9 trainer for Houston Police Department’s narcotic detail. And K-9s will give their life to the force without hesitation.

“A dog is there to save an officer’s life,” she said. “If a bullet is fired at an officer, the dog is the one to take it. They’re such amazing creatures, and they don’t ask for anything in return for the job they do but love.”

Still, for years, there has been a key difference between K-9s and their handlers: When an officer is severely injured in the line of duty, they board an ambulance or a helicopter for quick transport to a hospital. But if a police dog befalls a similar fate, Uhlin explained, its handler would place it in the back of a squad car, turn on the siren and race to the veterinarian through traffic.

Now, that has completely changed.

Memorial Hermann Life Flight launched a helicopter service specifically for police dogs in the beginning of December. The new program, “K9 Casualty Care Course and Transportation Service,” is the nation’s first nongovernment agency program to provide treatment and transportation for injured K-9 officers, according to the Texas Operational Canine Committee.

“It’s part of our legacy and foundation to be cutting edge — and find out what else we can do,” said Thomas Flanagan, Memorial Hermann’s vice president of trauma service line and system integration.

Creating a service for K-9s can be traced all the way back to the beginning, when Memorial Hermann Life Flight was created in 1976.

The late Dr. James “Red” Duke was the visionary behind the service, which was at the time, the second air ambulance program in the country.

“He had a dog named Jake,” Flanagan recalled. “And Jake was his body guard. Whenever Dr. Duke was in the operating room, Jake would be in our dispatch, waiting for him.”

Flanagan explained that Duke always wanted Life Flight to extend its services to K-9 officers.

“That was his goal and his dream,” Flanagan said.

Now it is a reality — and the simulator K-9 used during training is named Jake, as a tribute to Duke and his beloved sidekick.

“We all know how important K-9s are,” Flanagan said. “A K-9 is integral for law enforcement — and the challenges law enforcement has to face for our personal protection. The K-9 is really considered a law enforcement officer, who serves and protects the public.”

When it comes to meeting the dogs’ medical needs, Life Flight will operate in much the same way as usual, he added.

“It’s the same philosophy as for humans,” Flanagan added.

Only instead of heading to the hospital, the air ambulance will travel to a partnering veterinarian, either Westbury Animal Hospital or VERGI 24/7 Animal Emergency and Critical Care Hospital in Houston, or Texas A&M University Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in College Station.

Each location has 24-hour access and a helipad or designated area for Life Flight to land.

Memorial Hermann is also providing critical canine care training for officers that includes wound packing, CPR, poison control and tourniquet use. K-9 handlers also learn which circumstances demand a call to Life Flight.

At the end of the course, each handler receives a K-9 specific individualized first aid kit, which includes wound packing material, gloves, a mask for human-to-K-9 CPR and a tourniquet.

We Ride to Provide, an organization honoring fallen police dogs, donated the kits for the program.

Life Flight paramedics and nurses also received specialized training, developed by Houston veterinarian Jeff Chalkley.

Since the program began in the spring of 2019, more than 100 K-9 handlers and 40 emergency medical services and fire personnel have been empowered to treat their dogs, if injured.

The Life Flight team will continue offering three to five training classes each month and hopes to teach handlers of the estimated 200 police canines in the Greater Houston area.

The K9 Casualty Care Course and Transportation Service began in 2016 as a vision — with Rudy Cabrera, chief flight nurse of Life Flight, and George Tarver, Life Flight outreach education coordinator.

“We’ve been working on this for quite some time,” Flanagan said. “When you run an air medical program, you’ve got to be laser focused on what the objective is and all that’s involved. We worked really hard putting this program together.”

Senior Police Officer Uhlin’s late K-9 Sita participated in the training. She served the department for more than 13 years and was the narcotics division’s most senior K-9.

Most recently, Sita prepared flight crews for working with dogs.

“She was the first dog to fly on Life Flight,” Uhlin said. “She was very social and got to meet all the crews and teach them how dogs work. It was an amazing experience.”

Sita died before the program she helped develop was launched. Uhlin wished that she could have witnessed it finally get off the ground. But Uhlin takes comfort in knowing that injured K-9 officers will now be able to access emergency care by air — when minutes can make a critical difference.

“It’s nice to know that dogs are earning the respect they deserve, to be treated in this way,” she said.