I guess if you spent a lot of time outdoors it might be worth considering... but when you think of the number of people who actually end up needing this service, your odds are probably against it....


Air rescue

A few years back I was driving cross-country and was heading east out of Bend, OR. I was at least an hour's drive out when traffic on the highway suddenly ground to a complete halt. A car had just gotten into an accident entering a road construction zone. To get those people to the hospital meant they had to wait an hour for the ambulance to drive from Bend, stabilize the patients, and then drive an hour back to Bend (the nearest hospital). Yikes. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

There is the same type of service in my area. It is basically insurance in the event that you need to be med-evac'ed out for any reason. Ie. If I was in my local ER with some heart issues that they would feel more comfortable with the GOOD heart center 80 miles west handling, they may send me via chopper, and I would be covered.

It's not just a pick you up from the boonies thing.

Well, that's really the way all insurance works, isn't it? It's the only form of gambling in which you hope you'll lose money <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

For anyone in central Ca. try www.calstar.org. They have a $50.00 family membership. They also have a nice T-shirt,
"you gotta be sick to fly with us".
In the southern part of my county it's not unheard of to transport in a personal vehicle and meet the air or ground ambulance, but these people are a long way from nowhere.

When we were discussing a soon to be initiated helicopter transport system in the hospital I worked in (Bangor Maine), the ED folks pushed this concept.

One advantage to helicopter transport is that it extends the emergency department to the incident site. Not only does it get you to the Emergency Department quicker, but it gets the ED to the site quicker. The crews and equipment aboard are usually more sophisticated and provide a higher level of trauma care than ground vehicles.

This might be just a factor of the rural nature of Maine where most ambulance responders are volunteers and the air crews are full time trauma teams.

I other places it might not make such a difference.

Nomad