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Thu Mar 25 21:21:02 GMT 2010

Followup question -- how many patients really need aero transportation?

-Wes Ogilvie, MPA, JD, NREMT-P/Lic.P.
-Attorney/Licensed Paramedic
-Austin, Texas

-----Original Message-----
From: McSwain, Norman E <nmcswai at tulane.edu>
To: Trauma-List [TRAUMA.ORG] <trauma-list at trauma.org>
Sent: Thu, Mar 25, 2010 4:15 pm
Subject: RE: Medical Helicopter Down

Did the patient need the aero transportation?
Norman

orman McSwain MD
rofessor, Tulane School of Medicine
rauma Director, Spirit of Charity Trauma Center
orman.mcswain at tulane.edu
04 988 5111

----Original Message-----
rom: trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org [mailto:trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org] On 
ehalf Of Stephen Richey
ent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:13 PM
o: Trauma &amp, Critical Care mailing list
ubject: Medical Helicopter Down
*Poor decision-making in the aeromedical industry strikes again.  Three dead
his time during an attempted positioning flight into a heavy rainstorm.  *
Looks like they haven't learned their lessons after all.*

http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12201786
BROWNSVILLE, TN (WMC-TV) - A Hospital Wing helicopter has crashed near
rownsville.
ennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jeremy Heidt in Nashville
old the Associated Press it was a medical flight that crashed into a field
hortly after 6 a.m. CDT during a rainstorm near Brownsville.
eidt said the Hospital Wing helicopter had flown a patient to a Jackson
ospital and was returning to its base in Brownsville when it went down. All
hose aboard were crew members.
ccording to Bob Parks at the Haywood County EMA, three people died in the
rash.
he company's Web site says it flies the Eurocopter Astar AS350B3 model,
hich is capable of carrying a three-person crew and one patient.
tatement from Hospital Wing
/25/10
A Hospital Wing helicopter crashed at approximately 6 a.m. this morning just
ast of Brownsville, Tenn. Three crew members were on board. No patients
ere on board. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal
viation Administration are on the scene and the crash is under
nvestigation.
Hospital Wing was founded in 1985 and is a non-profit air medical transport
ervice with direct alliances with the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare,
aptist Memorial Hospital, The MED, St. Francis Hospital in Memphis and
rittenden Memorial Hospital in West Memphis, Arkansas.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in our history," said Allen Burnette,
rogram director and Chief Operating Officer.
========================================
It may not have happened to them, but it's happened to plenty of other
ervices....they need to learn from other's mistakes because crews don't
ive long enough to make all the mistakes themselves. *
===============================
ROWNSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A medical helicopter crashed in a rainy field in
estern Tennessee early Thursday, killing three crew members on a return
rip from delivering a patient. There were no survivors.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jeremy Heidt in Nashville
aid the flight crashed near Brownsville during a rainstorm shortly after 6
.m. CDT.
Heidt said the helicopter had flown a patient from Parsons to
ackson-Madison County General Hospital and was returning to its base in
rownsville when it went down a few miles from its destination. All those
board were crew members.
"The pilot was not in contact with air traffic controllers at the time of
he crash and there had been no indication of problems," said Lynn Lunsford,
 spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration in Fort Worth, Texas.
unsford said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were
nvestigating.
"They (investigators) will look at everything from the aircraft to the
eather," Lunsford said. "As the NTSB says, 'man, machine and environment."'
Rich Okulski, a supervisor in the Memphis office of the National Weather
ervice, said there were thunderstorms in the area at the time and weather
ould have played a role in the crash.
Okulski said the agency doesn't have an observer in Brownsville. But at the
ime of the crash, a thunderstorm was in progress at McKellar-Sipes Regional
irport in Jackson, about 25 miles east of Brownsville, and a line of
hunderstorms had cleared Memphis, about 55 miles southwest.
A photograph from the scene by WNWS radio in Jackson shows charred wreckage
f the craft in what was described as a wheat field.
Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the NTSB, said a team was leaving Washington
t midday to examine the crash site. He said the team will be on site for
hree to five days and a preliminary report would be released about 10 days
ater.
The flight was operated by Hospital Wing, a nonprofit air medical transport
ervice with headquarters in Memphis and branches in Oxford, Miss., and
rownsville. It operates five helicopters.
Jamie Carter, a company board member, said the helicopter was a Eurocraft
star model and one of the newest in Hospital Wing's fleet.
He said it was the first company accident since it began operating in 1986.
"We are suspending operations with the service until we can get our arms
round what happened," Carter said.
He did not know if the helicopter burned after crashing.
The branch in Brownsville opened in 2004 serving 26 counties in Tennessee,
ississippi and Arkansas, the company Web site says.
The crash scene is near U.S. 70 and about 55 miles northeast of Memphis.
Improving the safety of emergency medical services flights has been on the
TSB's "most wanted improvements" list since 2008, a year when the industry
uffered a record number of fatalities.
There were 41 people killed in 11 EMS helicopter accidents between December
007 and February 2010, according to an NTSB report.
It said the pressure that crews face to respond quickly during difficult
light conditions, like darkness or bad weather, has led to increased fatal
ccidents.
Last fall, the NTSB urged the government to impose stricter controls on
mergency helicopter operators, including requiring the use of autopilots,
ight-vision systems and flight data recorders.
Less than a month after the NTSB released the recommendations, three crew
embers died when a medical helicopter crashed in South Carolina after
elivering a patient to a Charleston hospital. Investigators said the
elicopter ran into bad weather and was trying to land.
In November, the pilot of a medical helicopter crashed into a hilly area
ear the Nevada-California state line, killing three - the pilot, flight
urse and paramedic. The crew had dropped off a patient at a Reno hospital.

-- 
tephen Richey, CRT
"A man's moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to
ive up his life in defense of his convictions."- Henning von Tresckow
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