It was back in 1946, 73 years ago, that Saskatchewan Air Ambulance began transporting critically ill and injured patients to hospital by plane and this past weekend was a new milestone. On August 3rd, was the first flight with all 4 crew members being female.

Carly St. Onge was the pilot, Tamara Kulyk the co-pilot, and the medical crew was paramedic Jen Rondeau and flight nurse Crystal Lybeck. St. Onge and Kulyk are the only female pilots out of 25 with Saskatchewan Air Ambulance, which is also known as Lifeguard. St. Onge considers flying with another female pilot rare, making flying with an all female team a special occasion. Kulyk says making these trips is what they do every day, but the fact that this time they were all women, made it unique.

The service completes about 15-hundred flights a year. It moved its operations to Saskatoon in 1993 to make it easier to serve the more isolated communities in the north. Saskatchewan’s Health Ministry began administering the program in 2008.