Meet the Transport Team: Ashley Langner

No two work shifts are exactly alike for Ashley Langner. She has helped move more than 1,000 critically ill or injured children, infants or expectant mothers as a nurse on the Children’s Mercy Critical Care Transport team over the past five years. Before that, she did another 1,000 transports at an Ohio hospital.

She has too many work memories to count: sad memories, stressful memories, happy memories and even funny memories.

But the morning of November 3, 2015 really stands out. 

She and her team were in a helicopter lifting off the roof of Children’s Mercy to retrieve a patient just as the Kansas City Royals wound their way through downtown streets for the World Series Parade amid an estimated 800,000 fans. She was awestruck. “The sea of blue was a sight to see,” she says.

Among her least favorite memories are the times she’s had to take babies from the arms of their distraught mothers.

“Though typically brief and always necessary, it’s heartbreaking,” she says.

Ashley never wanted to be anything but a nurse. As a young girl, she would swaddle her dolls in blankets and line up their cribs as if she were working in a hospital nursery. Her first job was as a nanny for four girls during summers and after school. 

“The baby of the four is about to graduate from nursing school, and she rode along with the transport team this summer,” Ashley says.

Her favorite part of her job is running into former patients and families in the cafeteria or the hospital lobby after the kids are on their way to recovery. She has a glass half-full mentality and can always find something good in less than optimal situations, she says. 

“There are far more happy endings than not in this job”.

When she’s not at work, she’s spending time with her husband and an 85-pound lap dog named Carl.

Learn more about the Critical Care Transport Team at Children's Mercy