OSF Health Care celebrated the return of its pioneering “flying nun” on Tues.
Shannon Perry is recognized for transporting a premature infant patient in 1967, when she was a nurse and nun at the hospital. She left the sisterhood shortly after that maiden voyage, but the success of that flight led to the development of OSF’s LifeFlight transport fleet. It now has four helicopters.
“To see people who are involved, and how many are involved, how big this program has grown," Perry said. "In a way, it’s overwhelming, to know from this very, very small start into how this has grown. It’s just tremendous.”
On that initial flight 50 years ago, Perry flew alone with a pilot and her hours-old infant patient. But on Tues., she was joined by a pilot, a flight nurse and LifeFlight’s medical director, Rose Haisler.
Haisler started her career at OSF as an emergency medicine resident.
“That was where I got my first exposure to LifeFlight," Haisler said. "If it wasn’t for Shannon and all the things that she had done, I wouldn’t be standing here today, because there would have been no helicopter for me to fall in love with.”
Haisler called Shannon Perry "a visionary." The anniversary flight lifted off from OSF’s hangar to the OSF St. Francis Hospital's helipad downtown.