All female air ambulance flight a first in Saskatchewan skies

The Saskatchewan Air Ambulance service celebrated a first over the weekend when an all-female crew took to the skies.

Pilot Carly St. Onge, co-pilot Tamara Kulyk, and medical team members Jen Rondeau and Crystal Lybeck flew together to Buffalo Narrows to pick up a patient in respiratory distress on Friday night and transported him to Saskatoon.

The four say they didn’t realize they would be flying together until they checked their schedules.

Kulyk and St. Onge are the only female pilots out of 25 with Saskatchewan Air Ambulance, which is also known as Lifeguard.

St. Onge says she considers flying with another female pilot rare, making flying with an all-female team a special occasion.

Saskatchewan Air Ambulance has been transporting critically ill and injured patients to hospital by plane since 1946 and completes about 1,500 flights a year.