Why I care about medevac helicopter overflights
Word comes of a tragic Maryland State Police medevac helicopter crash in suburban Washington, D.C. The copter crashed near Capitol Heights, inside the Beltway, while carrying two traffic accident victims to Prince Georges Hospital. The two pilots, a Charles County medical technician, and one of the patients were killed. Miraculously, the crashed occurred in a forest, and no one on the ground was injured or killed.
Accidents like this are why I keep pushing for a ban on medevac helicopter overflights of my Shipoke neighborhood along the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pa. Shipoke is on the most convenient approach path, but NOT the only approach path, to Pinnacle Hospital's rooftop helipad a few blocks to the north. The STAT-Medevac helicopters and others who bring patients (never highway accident victims) to Pinnacle must be required to approach the hospital over the river.
I'd like to stress again that unless Pinnacle lied on its original application to the FAA for the helicopter service, which occurred with no notice to my neighborhood, these aren't traffic accident victims coming in. They are mainly coming to Pinnacle from small rural hospitals around the state for specialized medical care, includinging poison victims. There is no reason the helicopters couldn't land at Capital City Airport and be met by ambulances.
Whenever I write on this subject, I get angry comments from people I suspect are Pinnacle or STAT-Medevac employees telling me that they hope I or my family are left on the highway by a medevac helicopter if we're involved in an accident (see above), or that I am selfish for complaining about helicopter noise (do you see a noise complaint anywhere in this post?), or how I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND that the helicopters have to fly over Shipoke (they don't). The helicopters are a profit and prestige issue for Pinnacle, so I don't expect the overflights will cease unless enough of us complain to the FAA and maybe not even then.
Comments
First, I'd like to point out that your claims about the allegedly "angry comments" you've received are rather disingenuis given the fact that you refuse to display the responses to your rants about medevac helicopters. I know I have attempted to educate you about your ill-informed position on this issue, and I have never even remotely suggested any of the ill-will you claim to have received.
Now back to the issue that you so thoroughly fail to understand.
The accident that occured in Maryland was of a helicopter that was doing exactly what you claim to want helicopters to do; it was flying TO an airport to drop off it's patients for an ambulance to then retrieve and then deliver to a hospital. The pilot specifically diverted to the airport instead of proceeding to the hospital in the interest of SAFETY...choosing to forego attempting a landing at the hospital because of deterioriating weather.
Somehow restricting the capacity of medevac providers to land on an FAA approved site is not somehow going to change the situations that occur and make you safer.
You also completely ignore the repeated lessons on why the pilots choose their approach and departure paths to the hospital. The most obvious reason being the location of the tower atop the hospital, but the key issue is WIND! A helicopter is not like a car which will instinctively go without complaining in the direction you point it. A helicopter on approach and departure needs to proceed into the wind. As it stands, the wind across Shipoke (aloft), typically proceeds from east to west, requiring the pilots to maneuver eastward on approach and departure. There are exceptions at times, and the pilots adjust their approach accordingly.
Next, the nature and condition of the patients makes NO DIFFERENCE. Trauma patients are not the only kind of patients who experience time-sensitive emergencies.
The helicopters are NOT a profit issue for Pinnacle; since they are the regional poison center, they will receive all of these poison victims no matter how they arrive. Of course, if the arrival is delayed, the outcome for the patients has great potential to be much worse...and traditionally, poisoning is not a profit-based endeavor, or else we would have COMMUNITY poison centers instead of REGIONAL poison centers; everyone would be getting on board to get a piece of the profit.
Finally, STAT MedEvac is not the only program flying into Pinnacle, so your criticism is misdirected. Multiple providers land at Pinnacle. And here is what has never happened; no medevac helicopter has EVER landed on a home next to a hospital and killed or injured a resident. Not once...hasn't even come close.
We could create rules for all kinds of hypothetical situations that so far show a statistical occurence of ZERO, and paralyze ourselves into never leaving our homes again. Decisions like this require empirical support, and quite frankly, I don't care much if a that noise annoys you, because that noise may just be the sound of life for someone else.
Posted by: Gonna try to teach you again | September 29, 2008 08:21 AM
I don't like making public comments but I am so offended that you should receive ugly messages with hopes that you or your family members should be left on the side of the road my medevac helicoptors that I had to say something. I know that you have never said that critical transports by helicoptor to trauma centers should not exist as I know you have never complained of the noise. There are far too many medical transports that end in a crash (killing the "critical" patients, the pilots and any caregivers on board and sometimes people on the ground.) Helicoptors are not easy to fly and (apparently) there are folks flying them who haven't mastered the art. I can't understand why there would not be laws to protect more people by insisting on safer routes for medevac helicoptors (or insisting that this type of transport only be reserved for patients for whom there is no better option.) Obviously nobody wants thes flights to end in deaths but they do in large numbers. Dave's simple request is that if you are to continue these flights you do it in a way that protects the largest number of people.
Posted by: Mareike Kuypers | September 29, 2008 01:59 PM