Stafford air ambulance services encounter early glitches.

By PAMELA GOULD

Date published: 6/19/2004

Delays concern EMS panel

It was a sunny Sunday morning when Glenn Hall decided to use his four-wheeler to haul tree limbs across the yard.

When he didn't come in for breakfast, his wife, Betty, went looking for him and discovered the four-wheeler had overturned, pinning her 61-year-old husband underneath.

She immediately called 911, which, in turn, called for an air ambulance. But it would take 20 minutes from the time LifeEvac was contacted to get a helicopter from Stafford Regional Airport to the couple's Widewater home about eight air miles away.

Working from a dispatch center in Omaha, Neb., and without adequate county maps, LifeEvac's dispatchers struggled to navigate the aircraft to the landing zone near the couple's home on Flippo Road. The frustration from rescue personnel on the scene reached such a pitch that, with the helicopter in view in the sky, they began radioing its crew with highway-type directions such as "turn right."

"The radio traffic was absurd," said Rock Hill station rescue Chief Jean Helmandollar, who heard that morning's radio communications.

LifeEvac's May 16 response to the Hall emergency highlighted concerns about the air ambulance's efficiency during its first three months of service. It was one reason the Stafford Fire and EMS Commission reduced the territory in which LifeEvac has priority in answering calls.

LifeEvac, an air ambulance service of Air Methods Corp. in Englewood, Colo., stationed a helicopter and crew at Stafford Regional Airport on March 8.

Through May 31, LifeEvac had responded to five emergencies in Spotsylvania County and another 18 in Stafford, according to LifeEvac Virginia Program Director Doyle Bock.

Of the 23 calls, response times ranged from two minutes to 24, according to LifeEvac statistics.

On May 16, after being notified of the accident involving Glenn Hall, Stafford dispatchers contacted LifeEvac dispatchers in their office 1,188 miles away and determined the helicopter was available at 10:32 a.m., according to records from LifeEvac and the county.

County records show the helicopter left Stafford's airport at 10:43 a.m. and arrived on scene 10 minutes and 23 seconds later.

In that time, according to comments made at the May 27 Stafford Fire and EMS Commission meeting, the helicopter's pilot and dispatchers struggled to find the landing zone in northeastern Stafford.

Date published: 6/19/2004