Mark Dent

For Mark Dent, an Air Evac Lifeteam (AEL) flight nurse from Brownwood, TX, his calling to emergency medical services (EMS) began long before he ever donned a flight suit. After years in critical care, the pull of the crews he saw delivering patients to his units shaped not just his career, but the foundation as a person, a partner and a father.

In 1990, Mark began his career in professional nursing. He worked in multiple care settings - including Intensive Care, Burn and Trauma units as well as emergency rooms (ER). Yet, every transfer sparked his curiosity about the role of EMS in connecting patients to lifesaving care. It would be 12 years before he would answer that call.

When Critical Air opened a base in Brownwood in 2002, Mark seized the opportunity to change roles and begin providing critical care access from the air. After a short time as lead nurse, he found his permanent home with the team at Air Evac Lifeteam 52 and never looked back.

“It’s more than a job,” Mark explains, “It’s a career and a passion that can last a lifetime. Although the situations you find yourself in are often the worst of the worst, AEL will prepare you for them, and you will have the most highly trained partner next to you at every turn.” The highly trained partner he refers to is program manager, Bobby Brinson, who began his own EMS journey as Mark’s paramedic partner.

“He never failed to tell me that airway I just missed was one of the easiest I was ever going to see…. And he was right, because intubating a test dummy is very different from intubating a patient. I did eventually master the skill. I’ve also added to my skill set chest tube insertion, needle decompression and two cricothyrotomies. Although you hope to never need them, they are invaluable when the patient is in need, and Bobby sees to it that we are all ready at a moment’s notice.”

It was the strength of their bond and their own unique skills that gave each the support they needed to build lifelong careers at Air Evac Lifeteam. In Mark’s case, it was his dream to stay in the field as a flight nurse.

No matter what you choose to accomplish or how you choose to accomplish it, you will always become a part of a community when you become part of the EMS industry. You might even build a family legacy like Mark did; his wife and their four children now work in healthcare too.

Mark proudly concludes, “The passion I found from EMS inspired the next generation of servant leaders, and I will always count that as my greatest accomplishment.” And what an accomplishment it is.