Opinions vary on cause of rise in crashes for EMS choppers
It's the one reassuring image in scenes of carnage - a helicopter lifting off, carrying a severely injured patient to the best medical care possible.
But the horrific crash of an Air Angels flight in Aurora late Wednesday, which killed three crew members and a toddler, has led some experts to seek a review of a recent spike in emergency helicopter accidents.
National Transportation Safety Board records show 10 medical helicopter crashes during a one-year period from 2006-2007 and five nonmedical helicopter collisions with wires, the suspected culprit in the Air Angels tragedy. That number rose to 14 medical helicopter crashes in 2007-2008 and eight collisions with wires.
John Brannen, NTSB lead investigator for the Aurora incident, announced Thursday that "the safety board is planning to hold a hearing on emergency medical services flight safety in the coming months. And they are looking at incidents such as this one and ones that happened elsewhere in the country for that hearing."
On Sept. 28, an EMS helicopter was downed in Maryland near Washington, D.C., resulting in four deaths en route from an accident. A month earlier, on Aug. 31, a medical helicopter crashed in Greensburg, Ind., taking the lives of three crew members leaving a charitable event.Juan Fitz, a flight physician and member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said he is confident that the industry is safe, but the latest news has made his family uneasy."We fly in these things and we're trying to sort out what's going on," said Fitz, assistant director of the ER at Covenant Medical Center in Texas. "It's perplexing."The decision to use a helicopter or ambulance is not a simple one. Variables range from how fast a patient needs to be transported to concerns about tying up limited ambulances in small communities, he explained.Still, Fitz has no doubt that using air emergency services "does make a difference and does save lives."The NTSB cautioned about medical helicopter safety in 2006, when it issued a report concluding that the "pressure to safely and quickly conduct these operations in various environmental conditions ... makes EMS operations inherently dangerous." The study came after an escalation in EMS aircraft incidents between January 2002 and January 2005, resulting in 54 fatalities. It recommended the Federal Aviation Administration require EMS flight operators to tighten training, procedures and upgrade equipment.Kent Johnson, a medical helicopter pilot and president-elect of the National EMS Pilots Association, believes that overall the system operates safely."There are a lot of variables (in the recent increase in crashes)," he said. "In the past few years, the volume of trips has gone up significantly and because of that, there are more accidents."But Johnson noted, "Any accident is unacceptable. You've got to work out where the rough points are and refine them."One of those refinements would be ensuring all EMS helicopter pilots have night vision goggles, which can reduce accidents. It's not known yet whether the pilot of the fatal Air Angels flight, which was headed from Sandwich to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago was wearing goggles.Aaron Gellman, an aviation expert with Northwestern University noted that "helicopters fly in dangerous environmental conditions and the people who fly deserve enormous credit."He said an analysis of how decisions are made regarding whether to use ground or air for medical emergencies was warranted.Transportation professor Joe Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, agreed that the rash of accidents is troubling."It's a form of air travel that relies on visual navigation. The margin for errors is zero," Schwieterman said. "As hospitals rely more on helicopter transportation, safety issues now are drawing heavy scrutiny." Daily Herald Staff Writer Justin Kmitch contributed to this report.