New Air Ambulance Rides to the Rescue in Colorado

Mar. 3--ALAMOSA - The wait is over.

No longer will the critically ill or seriously injured needing more medical help than San Luis Valley hospitals can provide them have to wait for hours to be airlifted to Front Range hospitals.

Eagle Air Med, a Blanding, Utah, company that began in 1979 as a scenic-flying service but branched into airlifting patients, established a base Wednesday in Alamosa.

Eagle Air Vice President Jim Hunt, whose father, Joseph Hunt, set up the medical flight company in 1981, said the seven-aircraft company focuses on small communities.

Ten Eagle Air Med employees will be stationed here with Ernie Aughe as base director. The service will be available 24 hours a day. Eagle Air is licensed in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Its medical director is in Arizona, Cheryl Bowers, program director and also a vice president, said.

Cindy Palmer, chief executive officer for San Luis Valley Health Maintenance Organization, and Russell Johnson, chief executive officer for San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center, joined forces to bring in the service.

Hunt remarked, "It is unique to see an insurance company, an HMO, working with a hospital to bring in more medical services. It's unique. We have never seen that before."

Hunt said people don't realize the importance of having a medical flight until they need it. Hundreds of patients are flown out of the San Luis Valley each year, and many of them have had to wait until flights can come in from Denver.

Johnson said that both the hospital and HMO worked together to come up with an air service. "We really feel we landed the right one," he quipped.

Dr. Norman Haug, administrator for the Rio Grande Hospital in Del Norte, said it will take about 45 minutes for an ambulance from his hospital to bring a patient to the Eagle Air Med service, which is based at San Luis Valley Regional Airport-Bergman Field, but minutes can be shaved if the plane meets them at the Monte Vista Municipal Airport, 10 miles west of Alamosa.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

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