FLAGSTAFF — A fiery collision that killed six people aboard two medical helicopters has underscored the dangers of emergency flights and has renewed questions about whether they are worth the risks.
Experts agree that air ambulances can save lives when the victim is in grave condition and the hospital is a long way off or hard to reach by road. But they say there are other cases in which an ordinary ground ambulance is just as good and perhaps safer.
The collision involved two helicopters that were arriving with patients Sunday at Flagstaff Medical Center. It was the ninth accident this year involving emergency medical aircraft, bringing the number of deaths to 16, National Transportation Safety Board officials said Monday.
"This has been a serious issue," NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said. "We're going to work very, very hard to make sure we understand exactly what happened here, determine the probable cause and make recommendations to prevent it from happening again."
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Crashes of medical aircraft have been on the rise since the 1990s for a number of reasons, experts said.
It's a booming business, fueled by the closing of emergency rooms in rural areas and an aging population, according to the National EMS Pilots Association. The number of emergency medical helicopters has climbed from roughly 400 in 2002 to more than 800 now, according to the Association of Air Medical Services, an industry group in Washington.
From 2002 to 2005, one of about every 50 medical helicopters in the U.S. fleet was involved in a crash, said a report by the Congressional Research Service. That's a far deadlier rate than that of the U.S. airline industry, which earlier this decade went nearly five years without a single commercial-jetliner crash.
The report also cited NTSB figures that said the accident rate for emergency medical helicopters has risen from 3.52 accidents per 100,000 flight-hours between 1992 and 2001 to 4.56 accidents per 100,000 flight-hours between 1997 and 2001.
Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, an emergency-medicine physician who teaches at the University of Nevada and has researched accident rates of medical helicopters, said the flights benefit only a small subset of patients, such as those needing a cardiac stent or balloon within a 90-minute window.
But helicopters aren't necessary for transporting most other patients and needlessly expose them to danger, Bledsoe said.
But Gary Sizemore, president of the National EMS Pilots Association in Alexandria, Va., and a pilot for Air Methods of Englewood, Colo., the operator of one of the choppers that went down in Flagstaff, said that air ambulances are especially useful in rural areas, where narrow roads and rugged terrain can make ground rescues difficult.
One of the helicopters in the Flagstaff collision was coming from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, about 70 air miles from Flagstaff and farther by ground. The drive on well-paved roads takes about 90 minutes. The other chopper was coming from Winslow, about 50 miles away on Interstate 40.
Three people died on each of the two Bell 407 helicopters: the pilot, the patient and a flight nurse on one chopper; the pilot, the patient and a paramedic on the other. A flight nurse on one of the helicopters was hospitalized in critical condition.
THE VICTIMS
A list of the six victims killed and one injured in the collision of two medical helicopters in Flagstaff:
• Michael MacDonald, 26, of Browning, Mont., was a wild-land firefighter with the Blackfeet Indian Tribe's Chief Mountain Hotshots. He had been fighting a prescribed fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and was being taken to the Flagstaff Medical Center from the South Rim after suffering anaphylactic shock — a life-threatening allergic reaction — from a treatment he received for a bug bite, authorities said.
• Shawn "Clyde" Shreeve Jr., 36, of Flagstaff was a flight nurse on the helicopter that had flown from Winslow to Flagstaff carrying patient Raymond Zest.
• Raymond Zest, 55, was retired after having worked for years as a driver at Culiver and then Legends Cadillac in Scottsdale, said the dealership's finance director, Anthony Herrmann.
• Patrick Graham, 51, of Flagstaff was the pilot of the Air Methods aircraft.
• Tom Caldwell, 54, of Page was the pilot of the Classic Lifeguard aircraft.
• Tom Clausing, 36, Classic medic, of Leavenworth, Wash.
In critical condition:
• James Taylor, 36, of Salt Lake City was a registered nurse at St. Mark's Hospital there who was working his second job as a flight nurse.
The Associated Press
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