March 19, 2008

Life Flight plans local base
Airport base will add $1 million payroll

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Dalles Chronicle

     If you live in the gorge and beyond, your chances of surviving a health crisis just got better.
     Life Flight, the Portland-based air ambulance service, announced plans late Monday to expand its operations to The Dalles and Eugene.
     That means stationing a helicopter and crew in each city by the middle of June, a move that will add $1 million in annual local payroll. (See story on page A4.)
     For The Dalles, the helicopter would be based at the Columbia Gorge Regional Airport, and critical patients needing transport to Portland won’t have to wait the extra flight time from Aurora to The Dalles.
     “This is huge,” said Duane Francis, President of Mid-Columbia Medical Center. “This is one of the top two or three enhancements to health care in this region for the last five or ten years.”
     Francis said that siting a helicopter in The Dalles “gives us options in inclement weather when Life Flight can’t get through the gorge. With the helicopter stationed right here, they can stay on the east side of the Cascades and transport south down to St. Charles [in Bend].”
     Michael Griffiths, CEO of Life Flight, says the move will also help patients in the Portland area because helicopters will be added to the Life Flight fleet.
     “We just went out to White Salmon,” Griffiths said Tuesday. “When we do that, we decrease the availablility of the aircraft in the Portland area, and we’re getting pretty busy here, so it’s really a win-win scenario.”
     Francis said MCMC was also in talks with Life Flight about how better to stage major trauma triage and transports.
     “There could be a very real scenario where risky patients will be transported here to be triaged before they’re sent elsewhere to receive further medical attention,” he said. “It’ll be a big deal for us.”
     Francis also pointed out that when patients from some outlying areas are transported by ground ambulance to Portland, it leaves that area withoug an ambulance for hours, and in some cases a full day.
     “What this will allow them to do is to stage those transports to here,” he said, “Then we can Life Flight them from here and get that ambulance back to their area so that they’re not without ambulance service for an extended period.”
     Chief Bob Palmer of Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue said, “It’s going to be good for the area, no doubt, the ability to have a quick response to those outlying areas in Sherman County, South Wasco County and Klickitat County.”
     Palmer said that in the past, Life Flight had been primarily used for trauma cases, including motor vehicle accidents and falls, but that the move here could expand possibilities.
     Life Flight’s Griffiths said that the company had expanded its use in other areas it currently serves. “New treatments for a patient experiencing a heart attack or stroke are often times just as time-sensitive as getting a trauma patient into surgery,” he said.
     Francis said he could see the possibility of eventually having a fixed-wing Life Flight aircraft stationed at The Dalles as well.
     “From a medical clinical standpoint this is an upgrade in service I cannot overemphasize,” Francis said.
     “We’ve worked closely with Life Flight for a lot of years and we’re just thrilled with this. We think it’s great, and it will be a big boon to the airport.”
Griffiths of agrees.
     “We’re really excited,” he said. “It’s just one of those rare stories that there is no downside; it’s all positive.”