Med Flight Loss Highlights Risk to Health-Care Workers
Posted on: Monday, 12 May 2008, 21:00 CDT
By David Wahlberg, The Wisconsin State Journal
May 12--More than 75 doctors, nurses, pilots and patients have died in medical helicopter crashes across the country in the past decade as the workers risk their lives to transport patients in need of medical care.
The reality of that risk has hit Madison, where three members of a UW Hospital Med Flight crew died late Saturday in a crash near La Crosse. It was the first crash since Med Flight began in 1985.
"This is a tremendous loss," Donna Katen-Bahensky, the hospital's chief executive officer, said Sunday at an emotional press conference.
"We are all devastated," added Dr. Paul Stiegler, medical director of Dane County's Emergency Medical Services.
Killed were Dr. Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne and pilot Steve Lipperer.
About 8:30 p.m. Saturday, they flew through the rainy night from Madison to Prairie du Chien to take a patient to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse because Gundersen's helicopter was in use, UW Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Brunette said.
On their return to Madison, the men crashed in a wooded hillside about four miles away from the La Crosse airport shortly after their 10:30 p.m. takeoff, officials said.
Authorities began looking for the aircraft about 11 p.m., searching in vehicles and on foot because bad weather prevented them from flying, said Mark Hanson, Med Flight's program director. The wreckage was discovered at 8:40 a.m. Sunday, off Keil Coulee Road in the town of Medary.
It is not known what caused the crash, and Hanson said he didn't know if weather was a factor. He said the pilot was operating visually rather than by instruments.
Visibility was eight miles at the La Crosse airport shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday, with conditions worsening later, said Jeff Raberding, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in La Crosse.
Federal officials are investigating the crash. A preliminary report could be available within two weeks, but a final report likely won't come for at least a year, said Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Med Flight's remaining helicopter will be grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration clears its use, said Hanson of Med Flight. Ground ambulances and other air ambulance services in the area will be available to transport patients, he said.
Stiegler, of Dane County EMS, said the absence of Med Flight's helicopters could affect some patients, such as those with heart attacks who need angioplasty.
Helicopters "will definitely be less available for some of the more critical patients," he said.
Bean worked at UW Hospital since 2002, and Coyne had been there since 1981.
Lipperer, who started his regular 12-hour shift at 7 p.m. Saturday, had flown for Med Flight since 2000, hospital officials said. He had been a pilot for more than 20 years, said family friend and UW Hospital nurse Heather Grant.
Lipperer was married to emergency room and Med Flight physician Dr. Desiree La Charite. He was employed by Air Methods, a Denver company from which Med Flight started leasing its two helicopters last year.
The chopper that crashed and Med Flight's other aircraft are American Eurocopter EC135s, said Craig Yale, an Air Methods spokesman.
Five other crashes of that type of helicopter have resulted in three deaths since 2003, according to the NTSB. Pilot error played the main role in three of those crashes and a major role in a fourth, the agency's records show.
Yale said Air Method's EC135s haven't experienced any significant mechanical problems, Yale said. The only issue, which he called "a nuisance," is that a shock absorber that helps hold the engine in place wears out more quickly than it should, he said.
Med Flight's helicopters were grounded last month for a week, along with several of Air Methods's other helicopters, because of a FAA paperwork discrepancy that had nothing to do with safety, Yale said.
Air Methods owns about 350 helicopters, leasing them to emergency medical services around the country, Yale said. The last fatal crash involving one of the company's helicopters was in December 2006 in Southern California, he said.
From 1998 to 2005, according to the NTSB, 89 medical helicopter crashes killed 75 people; 47 of the incidents were at night.
In 2006, after an apparent increase in crashes in previous years drew considerable public attention, researchers from John Hopkins University reported on an analysis of medical helicopter crashes since 1983.
The researchers said 56 percent of the fatal crashes were at night, and 77 percent occurred when weather conditions required pilots to fly primarily by instruments instead of using visual cues.
It was not known Sunday how many medical helicopter crashes have occurred since 2005.
But in a letter to Congress in May 2007, the Association of Air Medical Services cited a "dramatic reduction" in the number of such accidents in the previous 18 months.
In June, in a different kind of medical tragedy, a Cessna 550 airplane carrying two pilots and four members of the University of Michigan's organ transplant team crashed in Lake Michigan after takeoff from Milwaukee, killing everyone on board.
The crew had come to Milwaukee to harvest lungs and was returning to Ann Arbor, Mich.
State Journal reporters Jason Stein, Pat Simms and Brittany Schoepp and Autumn Grooms of the La Crosse Tribune also contributed to this report.
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Source: The Wisconsin State Journal
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