Mo. Air Ambulance Agency to Break Ground on New Base
Dec. 12--An emergency air transport service is preparing to move to a new home in Northwest Missouri.
LifeFlight Eagle, a not-for-profit helicopter transport organization, will break ground in the next 10 days on construction of a new base in Chillicothe, Missouri. The organization will relocate its Trenton base to Chillicothe, hoping to eliminate issues with fog at its current location.
Matt Daugherty, director of business development for LifeFlight, said the base in Trenton also had problems with flooding in the past.
"After our Trenton base flooded in 2014, we really began in earnest then looking, knowing that wasn't a good long-term solution for us but knowing that there was certainly a continuing need in north-central Missouri for air medical transport," Daugherty said.
The city of Chillicothe is constructing a helicopter hangar and living space for LifeFlight's crew at its airport. Work will start in the next week and is expected to wrap up either in the late summer or fall of 2017.
Initially, Daugherty said LifeFlight was hoping to have a facility constructed sooner. However, he said the organization is happy with the current timeline and plans for the facility.
The new location will have better visibility, Daugherty said. Fog often is present at the Trenton airport due to its location at a lower point of elevation and its proximity to a nearby lake. That fog causes visibility concerns. Visibility and Federal Aviation Administration rules sometimes prevent the aircraft from taking off to respond to emergencies.
LifeFlight Eagle staffs its bases with a pilot, flight nurse and flight paramedic 24 hours every day. Chillicothe will own the facility at the airport, and LifeFlight will lease the property.
LifeFlight's lease at the property in Trenton expired in June 2015. LifeFlight signed an extension with the city to give time to look at other options.
The move will lengthen the organization's response time to the Trenton community by about eight minutes, but Daugherty stressed that the organization is not by any means abandoning the city it has spent more than a decade in.
"We want to continue serving the Trenton area as well as Chillicothe and the whole region. We just needed to find the right place for us," Daugherty said.
He added that LifeFlight is working with emergency responders in Chillicothe to potentially partner in the future on LifeFlight Eagle ground services. Bad weather causes a gap in the organization's ability to serve the community. A ground service where the organization's staff could still assist with medical emergencies could improve service, Daugherty said. No details have been finalized on that additional service at this time.
Copyright 2016 - St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
