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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.
In light of the concerns, commission Chairman Charlie Robertson sent a letter last week informing Bock that LifeEvac would "be removed as the first due helicopter for Stafford County."
"This decision was based on numerous complaints that the fire and rescue chiefs have voiced regarding LifeEvac's response times, problems locating landing zones and the chiefs' concerns about how their equipment will be returned," Robertson wrote.
In a 3-2 vote, commissioners decided LifeEvac will be the first helicopter called for incidents north of State Route 627; competitor AirCare will be first for incidents south of that line.
AirCare, a unit of Petroleum Helicopter Inc. out of Lafayette, La., set up an air ambulance service at Shannon Airport in Spotsylvania in February.
Previously, AirCare responded to the Fredericksburg region out of Manassas Regional Airport in Prince William County. Its dispatchers work in Fairfax.
Before placing a helicopter at Shannon Airport, AirCare's average response time to four sites spread across Spotsylvania County--New Post, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Thornburg and Lake Anna--was between 17 and 23 minutes. Now it's between one and 10 minutes.
AirCare's average response time to four sites spread across Stafford--Garrisonville, Stafford Courthouse, Hartwood and Falmouth--ranged from nine to 13 minutes when it responded from Manassas. Now, it averages between two and six minutes, according to Wayne Perry, AirCare's base manager at Shannon.
Since relocating to Shannon Airport, AirCare's crew has had one long response of its own. On May 6, it took 29 minutes and 54 seconds for a helicopter to get to 1160 Brooke Road where a concrete truck had overturned and pinned someone inside the truck's cab.
Part of the delay was because the helicopter came from Manassas--not Shannon. Stafford Emergency Services Director Chuck Thompson thought AirCare should have contacted LifeEvac since it didn't have a helicopter available locally.
But Wayne Perry, base manager for AirCare's Shannon Airport operation, said LifeEvac was to be the first air ambulance called for any location in Stafford prior to May 27. So when AirCare got the call, its dispatchers assumed LifeEvac wasn't available, Perry said.
Stafford's dispatcher, however, had sensed the urgency from the scene and went with what was quickest--calling AirCare first because that company was set up in her speed-dial and LifeEvac was not, Thompson said. That setup has since been addressed.
Prior to AirCare and LifeEvac placing helicopters locally, the Fredericksburg region was served by various providers out of Northern Virginia, Richmond, Charlottesville and Washington.
LifeEvac has operated out of Richmond since October 2001.
AirCare has been serving the Fredericksburg region for 14 years, flying from Northern Virginia before adding a helicopter at Shannon. Thompson said familiarity with AirCare may be a key in perceptions about helicopter service.
"The first problem I think we have here is change," Thompson said last week when asked about the LifeEvac concerns. "That sets it up automatically for complaints."
But the concerns aren't completely without merit, LifeEvac's Bock admitted in recent interviews.
He was awaiting details from Thompson about the Widewater incident, but said both his helicopter crews and dispatchers had expressed frustrations in navigating to trauma locations during their brief tenure in Stafford.
Dispatchers in LifeEvac's Midwestern center handle calls not just for the Stafford helicopter, but 81 others stationed across the country.
Bock said it took time to appreciate the difference in dispatching from information provided by U.S. Geological Survey maps--as was done by the company's software system--and information contained in the ADC street maps that Stafford dispatchers use to set coordinates.
"There was some sense of frustration because they weren't able to look at the same materials," Bock said.
But that problem, which appeared to play a role in finding the landing zone in Glenn Hall's emergency, has been resolved.
Dispatchers in Nebraska now have ADC street maps for this region and are upgrading to a new dispatching software system, both of which should improve the helicopter's speed and reliability at getting to scenes.
"We are in Stafford, we're local to Stafford and we're working to address those concerns," Bock said.
Roger Sutherland, Stafford's assistant director of emergency services, said LifeEvac initially had problems with radio communications with Stafford but those were resolved after the helicopter company programmed in the proper frequencies.
Making that adjustment and getting the maps made a difference, Sutherland said. "We started seeing improvement after that."
Rock Hill rescue Chief Helmandollar, one of three people on an advisory group to the Stafford Fire and EMS Commission, said her focus is getting good care as quickly as possible.
"I have nothing against LifeEvac," she said. "It's all about patient care."
Glenn Hall survived his emergency remarkably well, his wife said.
LifeEvac's crew flew him to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where doctors determined he had broken a rib. He hadn't broken his back as suspected; he'd only badly bruised it.
Eight days later, he was back at work.
To reach PAMELA GOULD: 540/657-9101 pgould@freelancestar.com