By Jill Armentrout
Saginaw News (Michigan)
Copyright 2007 Saginaw News
All Rights Reserved
After 20 years, St. Mary’s of Michigan’s FlightCare air ambulance has logged more than 7,740 flights from Saginaw.
Crews now average 520 flights a year, up from 325 in the early years. Three-quarters of the flights are to transfer patients between hospitals, most coming to St. Mary’s from smaller hospitals around the region.
The rest of the flights are to emergency scenes, most often serious vehicle crashes
“Patients come back and thank us,” said Cindy S. Heaton, 52, of Hemlock, a nurse and emergency medical technician who has flown with FlightCare since it began.
“I had a man come up to me at our 10th anniversary. He was in a military uniform and I didn’t recognize him, but I had spent four hours extricating him out of a car up north. He was an Army sergeant. I didn’t think he would walk again. The helicopter makes a difference.”
The arrival of a second medical transport helicopter in Saginaw in 2004 - Covenant HealthCare’s partnership with LifeNet of Michigan - hasn’t diluted demand. LifeNet ran 465 flights in 2006, said Mike L. Clark, director. That’s up from 355 in 2004, and Clark expects demand to grow. Covenant plans to provide neonatal transports to its Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the near future, he said.
Service out of Saginaw covers almost the entire northeast portion of the state, as far as the Upper Peninsula. Helicopters make the distance traveling at 130 to 140 mph.
FlightCare’s first trip was in March 1987, when the helicopter brought a 12-year-old to St. Mary’s from Hills and Dale General Hospital in Cass City. Jeffrey S. Rievert had hit his head on the gym floor at Owendale-Gagetown High School while shooting baskets.
The fall left him unconscious and suffering from a severe concussion, internal bleeding and a fractured jaw. The
50-mile trip took 20 minutes. It would have taken an hour by car.
Heaton said advances in medical technology and practices in the last two decades have made flights even more critically life saving.
“We can do even more for patients with medications and techniques during flights and in traumas,” she said.
Patients in need of advance stroke or cardiac care must receive treatment within hours to reduce damage. A flight can get them to St. Mary’s in time, she said.
Working in the confines of a helicopter brings new challenges to patient care. Crews also have to adjust to the changes in air pressure, which can require modifications in doses and treatments. It’s also physically demanding on the flying staff, Heaton said.
Crew members work 12-hour shifts, during which time they make up to four flights.
“We have to be ready to lift off within 10 minutes of getting a call,” Heaton said.
In 20 years, staff numbers have expanded to 22 full- and part-time members, including four pilots. Each three-person flight crew includes a pilot, nurse and paramedic.
Mobile Medical Response dispatches both Saginaw helicopters to scenes, along with its ground ambulances.
“We had some growing pains in the beginning, but we have evolved into a community entity,” Heaton said. “We needed some time to prove ourselves. Now people depend on it. This is a very requested service.”
FlightCare receives 800 requests for service a year, but can’t answer them all. Weather can ground a flight, or the helicopter may have gone on another call or have maintenance issues, Heaton said. Mutual aid agreements allow other services to step in when needed. Both LifeNet and FlightCare respond to the same scene several times a year, she said.
FlightCare averages 600 to 800 flight hours a year, including 35 hours making stops at community events and providing education to fire, police and ambulance departments.
St. Mary’s, which leases its helicopter from Addison, Texas,-based OmniFlight, is on its third aircraft. A replacement of the original took more than three months after the new service had a fatal crash in June 1987.
Returning from a demonstration in Beaver Township, the aircraft crashed into a farmer’s field, killing the pilot and a nurse and injuring a paramedic. St. Mary’s halted service for 13 days after the crash.
A lawsuit, which awarded the nurse’s family more than $1 million, claimed pilot error and negligence in the design, maintenance or operation of the helicopter.
For the past 10 years, FlightCare has used a larger version of the original helicopter, with more room to care for up to two patients on one trip.
Last week, the aircraft was in Columbus, Ohio, for its annual six weeks of maintenance. A backup was on loan from OmniFlight.