With a whirring roar from its rotary propellers, a helicopter in Alberta’s STARS program settles onto a farm field, beside a highway or near an oil well site to pick up an injured person for transport to a city hospital.
It happened 1,115 times in 2002 as the rescue service flew out of its two bases in Edmonton and Calgary.
As a result, lives have been saved, Barry Knapp of the Edmonton base told the Alberta Women’s Institutes annual meeting in Camrose. The busiest year was in 2001, when the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service flew 1,243 missions in Alberta.
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Rural focus
Funded one-third by the province and two-thirds through donations, STARS remains busy. The two helicopters cover rural areas within 250 kilometres of Alberta’s two main cities.
“We do hear back from patients that write and thank us,” Knapp told the AWI.
“We’re just one link in the chain of survival.”
Also important in the process are firefighters, RCMP and local ambulance and health-care staff.
The public cannot activate the helicopters, which are on call 24 hours a day every day. That is a decision made by health and aviation authorities. Usually the helicopters are called when it would be quicker and less traumatic for the injured person than having them transferred by ambulance twice and loaded onto an emergency airplane. The helicopters can land beside the accident and then on top of a hospital roof.
The $10 million a year service has big plans for the future, Knapp said. The service wants to buy two faster, larger helicopters that will be able to double the present range and fly in bad weather. Last year STARS turned down 140 missions due to poor weather.
Knapp said there is no pattern to the accidents that STARS services.
“It’s hit and miss. It’s really unpredictable.”
STARS began in Calgary in 1985 when Dr. Greg Powell decided people weren’t getting into trauma centres quickly enough. He started the program with an initial donation from the Lion’s club, and it expanded to Edmonton in 1991.
