By Patricia Neleski
The Virginian-Pilot (Virginia)
Copyright 2006 Landmark Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
BAYSIDE, Va. — Stephen Patterson thinks the nonprofit Air Compassion America may be changing air ambulance service for good.
Patterson, executive vice president of Mercy Medical Airlift, a nonprofit agency that assists people in health crises in getting airline tickets, believes Air Compassion America, or ACAM , is pushing down prices for air ambulance services.
Launched in Virginia Beach in February 2004, the service helps patients and their families by saving them 40 percent to 50 percent off the cost of medically assisted flights, he said.
Mercy Medical Airlift and ACAM are sister organizations formed by Beach resident Ed Boyer , founder of Angel Flight.
A CAM started with the premise of linking people in need with empty “backhaul” flights on air ambulances around the world.
Every day, ACAM program director Juliet Hutchens studies the flights of air ambulances to see where there are empty flights, known as backhauls, that take the planes back to their home hangars.
She matches these flights to people who n eed l ow-cost air ambulance services anywhere in the world .
ACAM fills a gap that the more familiar volunteer charity Angel Flight cannot: offering flights on large commercial flights for people in need of constant medical attention, and a smooth ride.
Angel Flight provides free flights offered by volunteer pilots on any size plane — but only for people who can get on and off the plane themselves and have no need of medical assistance while in the air.
“We are a small nonprofit . We cannot offer the flights for free,” Hutchens said, “b ut we can save them a lot of money. And we can take the burden of searching off their shoulders.”
Hutchens works with case managers through hospitals, the Red Cross, military aid societies and other groups to link families with flights.
There is no charge for ACAM services, while some commercial brokers may charge a percentage to arrange the flight, Hutchens said.
“They’re dealing with numbers ; we’re dealing with lives,” Hutchens said.
Sometimes the cost of an air ambulance service can be so prohibitive - up to $24,900 per flight, and insurance may not cover it - that families are left in a crisis, Hutchens said.
Hutchens has helped young people who were injured on vacation get back to their families via air ambulance, Americans who fell ill overseas, and those who needed cancer treatments in other states.
“M any families are left with no options other than ground transportation,” Hutchens said. “But that can be a challenge while traveling across say, the great state of Texas . That’s a long (way) by ambulance.”
So far this year, ACAM has helped 197 families get air ambulance service from all over the world. Of that number , 110 families were military affiliated.
Patterson believes ACAM is forcing air ambulance businesses to re-examine their policies.
“One vendor caught a vision of what we were doin g and saw that it was a work of the heart,” Patterson said. “They’ve learned that we can bring them a larger number of missions, and that we can continually bring them business.”
Hutchens welcomes the chance to link air ambulance service with people in need.
“Every phone call is a chance to spread compassion. We’re not out for financial gain; it’s very meaningful to be able to help someone,” she said.
* Air Compassion America is at 4620 Haygood Road, Suite 1. Call 318-4318 , or visit , for more information.