What a ride!
LifeFlight celebrates 30 years of caring
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

John Balters, 3, sits in the back seat of LifeFlight 1 under the supervision of Flight Paramedic Jeremy Morris as Pilot Bill Dvorak looks on. Nick Stamenkovich/ Gulf Breeze News

Pensacola resident Norman Nalepa awoke from a coma Christmas Day, 2005 to discover he'd been unconscious for more than a month after a nearfatal motorcycle accident. Like so many other trauma patients in the Pensacola Bay Area, he also learned that he owed his life to the dedicated crew of Baptist Health Care's LifeFlight helicopter.

"It's quite awe inspiring," Nalepa said as he reverently gazed upon the finely tuned aircraft sitting on the helicopter pad at Gulf Breeze Hospital. Nalepa was one of several local residents on hand May 22 to celebrate LifeFlight's 30th anniversary.

On November 7, 2005 Nelapa was on his way back home from surveying the destruction left behind by Hurricane Katrina when his motorcycle collided with another vehicle near Daphne, Ala.

"If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here right now talking to you," Nalepa said of the LifeFlight crew, not long after his wife Brenda spoke about his injuries including four broken ribs, head trauma and a punctured lung. Nelapa said her husband's injuries were so severe that an ambulance would have taken too long to transport him to nearby University of South Alabama Medical Center.

Nick Stamenkovich/Gulf Breeze News LifeFlight 1 comes in for a landing at Gulf Breeze Hospital.

Baptist Health Care PR Specialist Ashley Hodge estimates the three-helicopter LifeFlight system similarly saved approximately 900 lives in 2006. In 2006 alone, Baptist LifeFlight transported over 2000 patients from within a 100-mile radius of Pensacola. Approximately 65 percent of those calls are scene transports, that is, transports involving either severely injured or critically ill patients. The others will be inter-hospital transports. Often, patients transported by Baptist LifeFlight have neither insurance nor the financial means to reimburse for their flights. Baptist Health Care absorbs this considerable expense, relying on donations to Baptist Health Care Foundation for help.

"[LifeFlight] can get to a variety of remote locations very quickly," Hodge said, adding that the helicopters serve as a faster way to transport trauma patients from remote or limited access areas like the Gulf Breeze peninsula and Pensacola Beach. In a promotional flight, the LifeFlight helicopter flew from Gulf Breeze Hospital to Portofino on Pensacola Beach in less than five minutes. The same trip would take at least 10 to 15 minutes in a car, traffic permitting.

According to Hodge, LifeFlight was the third program of its kind in the US and the first in Florida.

The twin engine, 2000 model ec135 helicopter made by American Eurocopter that serves the Pensacola area has a top speed of approximately 165 mph and a cruising speed of 150 mph, pilot Bill Dvorak said. The helicopter is equipped much like a ground ambulance and typically carries the pilot, a flight paramedic, a flight nurse and one to two patients. The pilot added that the helicopter can reach an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet and normally operates at an altitude of 1,000 to 1,500 feet. Dvorak, one of four LifeFlight pilots operating in Pensacola, also said his crews have logged approximately 2,900 of flight time on the machine. From the tip of the blade to the end of the tail rotor the helicopter measures close to 39 feet in length and is permitted to land in a 100 by 100 foot square. Responding fire departments are usually in charge of securing a landing zone for patient transport.

Baptist Health Care currently operates three helicopters, LifeFlight 1 based in Pensacola, Fla., LifeFlight 2 in Mobile, Ala. and LifeFlight 3 in Evergreen, Ala. Dvorak, who has served as a LifeFlight pilot for close to 20 years, said the system employs close to 100 people. Approximately 25 of those employees are based in Pensacola.

Eddie Ishmael, 52, works with LifeFlight dispatch in Pensacola and has been with the program since its inception in 1977.

"We went from pencil and paper documentation to having computer, radar and satellite technology," Ishmael said. "It has progressed exponentially."

Ishmael said he feels very fortunate to have been apart of a great organization with unprecedented foresight. Ishmael also urged area residents not to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

"Drunk drivers keep us in business," Ishmael said.