I have found on many occations that pilots think that they can push the limits because they are going to save a life. When asked what do they think saving a life is worth... as far as your crew and self is concerned, I tend to get the answer of "what do I mean"!!!! It is difficult for young pilots to see the difference between sound planning and a poor decision making as three quaters of the time older pilots that tend to set the example
tend to get away with marginal decisions due to their vast experience levels to fall back on.
EMS pilots is a amazing bread of people..
.. if that is what you do because you believe in it. For that I take my hat of to all of them. However too many young pilots see it as a hour building exercise, when not having a call for a couple of days and then a call comes in with the weather conditions, night, ect. being marginal, too many EMS pilots will do this call because it might be his only flight for a week.
I think a lot of accidents/incidents could have been prevented if the general mindset of EMS pilots was that of saving a live while preserving that of his crew.
For those in the game good luck and you can not always save a life.....even if all of us would like to.
SAS I certainly agree with you and wish I had a solution. But must admit that I find the general EMS pilot has a lot of inovation as far as their ability to select landing areas ect is concerned, But they do make the same errors over and over through out the world as far as planning and pushing the limits is concerned.