Association News

Survivor Hatch Onboard for Annual Meeting

HASC has added speakers to its 2022 Annual Meeting roster — with two-time plane crash survivor Austin Hatch (above) now on the agenda. 

Hatch will tell how he pushed on after losing his family in aviation disasters in 2003 and 2011, recovering from severe injuries before graduating from Loyola High School in Los Angeles in 2014. He then went on to play basketball at the University of Michigan before marrying the woman of his dreams.

It would have been easy to give up following the second accident, Hatch related in a 2018 interview. But after enduring so much, the sweet points of life became even sweeter, he said.

He recalled pausing to savor the moment he arrived to play basketball as a Wolverine in Ann Arbor in 2014.

“It was a dream come true,” Hatch recalled. ”After being in the hospital for months… It felt good being here because I knew I had to work for it. I was like, ‘You earned this, man.’” 

HASC’s Annual Meeting planning team also reminds members of its annual Call for Presentations. Applicants are asked to submit session proposals by Tuesday, Nov. 30.

Proposals on the following HASC priority topics are especially welcome:

  • Diversity and inclusion in the workforce
  • What permanent changes has your hospital made as a result of COVID-19?
  • How has your emergency planning process changed in light of COVID-19?
  • Improving access to behavioral health services
  • Consumers and point-of-care initiatives
  • Physician engagement and alignment in a value-based environment
  • Emergency medicine, throughput, efficiency 
  • Improving responses to workforce burnout and emotional exhaustion

Don’t hesitate to send an idea. 

With any questions, please contact HASC Events Coordinator Leticia Salcido.

Leticia Salcido

Job title:
HASC Events Coordinator
Phone number:
(213) 538-0737