08/27/2026
Read about our very own Chief Flight Nurse Michael Fadale! Millersville University
From the Review: Mike Fadale ’09 Manages Emergency Care Aboard Life Lion
A boyhood obsession with helicopters and a passion for providing life-saving care led Mike Fadale ’09 to a career as a flight nurse. In March 2026 – with 27 years of healthcare experience that included 21 years as a registered nurse and 14 years as a flight nurse – he was named chief flight nurse aboard Penn State Health Life Lion Critical Care Transport, which is based at the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
Fadale began his tenure with Life Lion as a part-time flight nurse – a specialized registered nurse who provides critical emergency care and life support to patients aboard helicopters during medical transport – in 2014 and then transitioned to full-time in 2017. “I have been at Life Lion full-time since then,” he says. “I interviewed for and took on the challenge of being chief flight nurse, which involves oversight of the nursing staff and quality management of the program.”
His journey to his current role began at a young age. “I have loved helicopters since I was about 5 years old,” he says. “I grew up in the Lehigh Valley, and my mom knew one of the pilots at Lehigh Valley Health Network MedEvac. They took me to see the helicopter up close and gave me a MedEvac keychain with a house key on it. They told me it was a key to the helicopter. From there, I was obsessed and had a strong fascination for helicopters and aviation.”
In high school, Fadale “leaned toward doing something medical.” He joined a healthcare explorer post at Lehigh Valley, and at 17, took a course to become an emergency medical technician. He worked or volunteered part-time as an EMT during high school and throughout his time at Millersville University.
“I was able to interact with and help offload the MedEvac crews when they flew in,” as a support partner for Lehigh Valley. “As an EMT, I would occasionally have to call for a helicopter and always had amazing interactions with flight providers. They provided a sense of calm, had an enormous amount of autonomy, and always seemed to know what to do in some very chaotic situations. Seeing them in those moments was what made me want to work in flight medicine. Their level of skill, compassion and professionalism set the standard that I would strive for in my own practice. My goal was to start flying by the age of 30.”
“I initially started at MU in 2000 out of high school with plans on going the bio/pre-med route,” Fadale says. “Part way through, I opted to transition to nursing school for my diploma classes in nursing. I graduated in 2005 but always planned to return to MU to finish my BSN. You could say my path to nursing was not the most traditional.”
After graduating from nursing school, Fadale worked in the emergency room at Lancaster General Hospital. He pursued his certification as a pre-hospital registered nurse so that he could continue working in emergency medical services and eventually move to flight nursing.
Fadale returned to Millersville, as planned, and completed his BSN in 2009 as a commuting student. In 2011, he applied for a position as a flight nurse with Lehigh Valley MedEvac and was selected. He started his flying career in 2012, nearly meeting his goal of flying by 30.
“Working in flight medicine is a privilege, and quite honestly is the best office view in the world,” he says. “Even after some of the most challenging patient transports, there is something calming and peaceful about the flight back to base that helps put everything into perspective.”
In addition to his work as a flight nurse, Fadale has also volunteered with Pennsylvania Vent Camp for 25 years, an opportunity he learned about as a Millersville student and member of the Respiratory Therapy Club. “I attended my first time as a Millersville student,” Fadale says. “The free camp is for children who are ventilator-dependent in some way. We take them swimming, ziplining, rock wall climbing and fishing, and they participate in events like a carnival, talent show and camp dance. This camp requires two to three counselors for each camper as well as many other medically trained staff helping to make sure these kids can have a safe and fun week. I function as a team leader, ensuring all campers in my cabin receive their required daily treatments, medications and therapies. “Many of these children require care around the clock. Pennsylvania Vent Camp is a week that provides these kids with experiences to help them feel like typical children, and it’s a week of respite for the families.”
Fadale has also dedicated more than a decade to the public safety aviation community through Every Coast Helicopter Operations. “ECHO is a nonprofit organization that is 100% volunteer-operated and works to provide low-cost education, peer support, safety standards and future flight clinician training across the entire public safety aviation community,” he says.
In 2017, Fadale helped develop and implement the ECHO Flight-Crew Assistance and Support Team, a “deployable, boots-on-the-ground group that provides peer support and assistance to flight crews across the country who have experienced a major incident or crash. We recognized that we in healthcare – and specifically, public safety aviation – do not do a great job of supporting ourselves, and we wanted to change that for the industry.”
Fadale served on ECHO’s board and assists with the Future Flight Crew team that trains future flight clinicians to be better prepared for entry into the industry. His most recent role with the organization is volunteering as a co-host for the Valor Flight Crew Podcast, a collaborative effort between ECHO and Vertical Valor Plus magazine to promote the personnel and equipment behind helicopter air ambulance services. Sponsorship dollars collected by the magazine go back to ECHO and, ultimately, to the frontline crews.
“The mission of ECHO really speaks to me,” he says. “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what color flight suit you wear, what helicopter you fly in, or what kind of transports you do. We can all learn from each other and make this industry safer and better for both our patients and us.”
