# Medevac crash in Illinois



## flhtci01 (Oct 16, 2008)

Medevac flight hit radio tower.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27211060/


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## bstone (Oct 16, 2008)

Sigh. I worked at Children's Memorial Hospital for 2 years and regularly saw the Air Angels folks coming and going. I worked on CMH's ground ambulance. We'd go get sick kids when the chopper wasn't flying.

I am really sad about this. It hits real close to home.


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## mikie (Oct 16, 2008)

*When will these end?!*

I'm f-ing sick of all of these EMS-related disasters!  I'm not pointing blame at anyone, it just makes me sick to my stomach.  

My prayers for everyone in these horrid accidents.  :sad:


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## John E (Oct 18, 2008)

*With any luck...*

the number of EMS personnel deaths will finally force the powers that be to study the efficacy of using helicopters for transport of pts.

How many people have to die before people in charge start to rethink the ways they do things?

Is "saving" 30 or 40 minutes of transport time worth the lives of EMS providers and a patient? 

John E.


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## mycrofft (Oct 18, 2008)

*Local trauma center ditched it's choppers. Pun unintended.*

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/Releases/archives/other/2004/lifeflight.html

This is all administrative PR BS for "The chopper pts lost us money so now we pay a service fifty miles away to come do it for us much less frequently". Same reason they won't do a MICU etc. (This tax supported medical center is the only hospital in the black in this area. In fact they tried to ditch the trauma center appelation. But I digress...):glare:

Again, triage by time and distance. We need more small outlying outpt and emergency centers and fewer big centralized dinosaurs. Then your local ambulance can get you to a spot where you can be stabilized, pending admission to a major medical center if needed...or sent home if that's appropriate after-all.

We lost two deputies and disabled another a few years ago, due to manufacturer error, I sympathize with the medical community when an aviator and the talented crew perish.


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## Sjames (Oct 18, 2008)

John E said:


> the number of EMS personnel deaths will finally force the powers that be to study the efficacy of using helicopters for transport of pts.
> 
> How many people have to die before people in charge start to rethink the ways they do things?
> 
> ...



Very sad to see anyone the recent loss of life to EMS personnel.

I don't know if it is lack of training fatigue or just not enough support. I read an article where many ems helos only have one pilot and are on 24 hour shifts. Its stupid and ridiculous.

You should always have a copilot especially if it is someone life in your hands.Helicopters are safe machines. In my opinion I think the EMS personnel are just getting overworked and don't have the training or support they need. Its all about making the mighty buck.

As mycrofft said about the outlying emergency centers. Level 1 and so forth. Its all about money. Taxpayers are not going to support unless something happens in there lives. The nearest level on to me is almost 130 miles away while there are 3 level 2s and a level 3 and 4 within 45 miles.

I know that all EMS helicopters should have 2 pilots and they shouldn't be allowed over 8 hours a shift.

There are always going to be more accidents with a higher patient demand. 

Just a clip here about ambulances not helos;

There were a total of 41 ambulance accidents reported on EMSResponder.com from June 2006 through April 2007. These accidents resulted in a total of five reported deaths and at least 43 injuries to EMS responders. While this summary does not encompass every accident that occurred during this time period, as not all accidents were covered by local media, it does offer a snapshot of the most serious incidents. This summary includes only ground ambulance crashes in the U.S., and does not include accidents involving personal vehicles of EMS personnel, other rescue apparatus, or air ambulance crashes.

There are hundreds of ambulance related accidents and many deaths. That clip is just one year and is no means accurate. Its sad all around.

Helicopters do save lives. It you can get a patient to a level 1 or 2 fast 20-40 minutes make a world of difference.


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## John E (Oct 18, 2008)

*Lots of things...*

save lives, if it was only about saving lives, we'd only have free on demand ALS service available to every citizen of the country. It's whether the lives saved are worth the lives taken that's becoming the real question.

Obviously there are a fair number of ambulance crashes, given the sheer number of them out on the road it's inevitable. Big difference between that and the crash of a helicopter. Odds of walking away from a helo crash are pretty much nil. A good friend of mine was a police helicopter pilot for many years, even he admits that they're used as much for PR purposes as for fighting crime, I can't help but think that the air ambulances are being used for the same thing. Not to mention it's relatively easy to get funding for things like helo's compared to getting funding for the more mundane things like co-pilots and training.

There obviously needs to be some risk assessment studies done to both figure out why this is happening more and why so many people seem to think that a helicopter ride is worth the risk to all involved.

John E.


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## flhtci01 (Oct 19, 2008)

While they have not listed a cause and probably will not for a while, they are questioning if the tower lights were on.


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## Flight-LP (Oct 20, 2008)

Sjames said:


> Very sad to see anyone the recent loss of life to EMS personnel.
> 
> I don't know if it is lack of training fatigue or just not enough support. I read an article where many ems helos only have one pilot and are on 24 hour shifts. Its stupid and ridiculous.
> 
> ...



While I certainly agree with you concerning having a second pilot and the financial motive of many air service, you are incorrect on level of training and duty times. There is not one pilot in the United States that works a 24 hour shift. Part 135 regulations dictate that a pilot may only work a maximum of 14 hours in one calandar day. It also requires mandatory rest times for continuous work over 8 hours. Fatigue has not been a factor in any of these accidents if my mind serves me well.

Crew training is also not an issue. Most air crews are veterans within their field. Most with years of experience. Most reputable companies today require crew resource management. Many hours are spent training at the crew and company level. But alas, the medical crew's hands are tied. Most services cannot refuse to transport which is a key factor that needs to be looked at. All of the "mechanism of injury" MVA's that ground EMS calls the helicopter for needs to stop. All of the "well they will wind up transfering him there anyways" calls need to stop. All of the "we can't take him that far because our county will be without an ambulance" calls need to stop. Training on the crews part has nothing to do with it.

While we wait again for yet another NTSB report, we can focus on the external factors, but lets not get onto a band wagon of change when the factor cited have zero to do with the problem........................


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## MSDeltaFlt (Oct 22, 2008)

Flight LP, you're right about people getting on a bandwagon when it comes to HEMS crashes.  That's something we need to be very careful about.  The vast majority of people I hear voicing opinions about helicopter crashes don't work in HEMS.  And only a fraction of those have even been through a helicopter crash.

You can't teach experience, people.  There are a ton of factors that go into a flight that most can't even fathom.  You add onto that all of the mitigating factors involved when a bird goes down, then things REALLY start to get complicated.

Like you said, lets wait until the NTSB report comes out.  Even then I doubt it will have everything that happened listed as factors... like what went on in the aircraft just before crashing.

I can say this with some degree of certainty because I have what cannot be taught.  I have the experience.  Relearning how to walk again because of a SCI at L3 and wearing a HALO 'til C2 heals, is not fun. 

Just my 0.02.


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## marineman (Oct 23, 2008)

According to a JEMS article the tower lights were on. I'm interested to hear if they come up with anything else. 

http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/news/tower_lights_on_before_crash.html


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## mycrofft (Oct 23, 2008)

*MSDeltaFlt, I hear you.*

We groundlings are quick to speculate.


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## tydek07 (Oct 27, 2008)

Wow, there have been a lot of these kind of things happening lately. Think something needs to change. 

Are the pilots getting enough sleep? Training? Do policies have to change? IDK, but something needs to be done.

Take Care,


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