AirMed employees are learning vital survival skills this week in Ophir Canyon.
“Each year we’re required to go through either a winter survival training session or a summer survival training session,” said Bobbie Carlisle, newborn ICU nurse stationed at the University of Utah Hospital.
“We need to learn what to do in case we go down (on a flight) and nobody is able to get to us for several hours,” she said.
Pilots, mechanics, nurses, paramedics and dispatchers are required to complete these sessions, she said. A session was held on Wednesday at an RV campground in Ophir Canyon. Another session was held there Thursday with a final session on Friday. Employees must attend one of the three sessions, said Carlisle who lives in Tooele
AirMed’s Tooele helipad, at 145 E. 1000 North, is home to one of the busiest ships in the company.
“Mainly because it covers such a big area with all the activity on I-80 out to Wendover and south to Five Mile Pass.” said AirMed Safety Chairman Randy Scott.
AirMed’s home base is at the University of Utah hospital with other pads in Layton, Park City, Nephi and Rock Springs, Wyoming.
A twin-engine helicopter is stationed at the U of U with single-engine helicopters at all the other bases. The single-engine choppers have a range of about 160 miles with speeds up to 160 mph.
Pilot Trevor Ericksen took off from the Tooele helipad at 9:21 a.m. on Wednesday and landed at the Ophir site at 9:34 a.m.
During the exercise, pilots showed AirMed employees where to find the emergency location transmitter (ELT), how to turn off the helicopter should the pilot be incapacitated, and other features of the ship.
Scott is in charge of finding locations each year for the survival training sessions. He worked with former Ophir Canyon Mayor Walt Shubert to find a good location in the canyon.
Scott said the 140 employees at AirMed gain a lot of satisfaction with their work.
“We don’t wish illness or injury on anyone, but we are proud to be able to transport patients to where they can get a high level of care,” Scott said.
“I don’t think the general public realizes that we are fortunate to have three Level 1 trauma centers here in northern Utah with the U of U, Intermountain Medical Center and Primary Children’s Hospital,” he said.
“We fly trauma, burns, medical, pediatric, neonate, high-risk OB and cardiac assist device patients 24 hours a day,” Carlisle said..
During their hours in Ophir, AirMed employees visited five areas in the canyon where they learned how to build an emergency shelter, how to start a fire, devices and ways to purify water, ways to signal for help and how to use the SPOT satellite GPS Messenger for off-the-grid messaging and emergency alerts.
AirMed officials said their employees are the best in the business. They said flight nurses need a minimum of five years experience in a Level 1 facility, and flight medics need a minimum of five years experience with a high-volume 911 agency. Helicopter pilots need 2,000 hours of flight experience before they can work for AirMed.