County considers new air ambulance provider
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

County commissioners may consider adding another helicopter to their emergency response system.

At their committee meeting on Tuesday, May 29, commissioners heard presentations from representatives for Air Methods Corporation, county emergency management and Baptist Health Care. Currently, Baptist Health Care's LifeFlight system holds exclusive rights to patients in Santa Rosa County, unless their helicopter is unavailable.

Air Methods, doing business locally as LifeNet GulfFlight, has a branch in Niceville and currently operates medical transport helicopters in Okaloosa County. Panhandle Program Director Ron Mosley said his company would like to station a helicopter at Santa Rosa Medical Center in Milton and serve residents north of I- 10.

"We have researched and looked and we think there is a need both for faster response than was previously provided and also to back up the EMS system in Santa Rosa County," Mosley said.

Mosley argued that his company would be able to cut response times by as much as nine minutes when compared to LifeFlight, which is based in Pensacola. The Pensacola based helicopter, LifeFlight 1, can often be seen at Gulf Breeze Hospital.

Mosley said LifeNet GulfFlight would need to run an average of 300 calls per year in order to be profitable. According to the county's Emergency Services Coordinator, Brad Baker, LifeFlight arrived on scene to 330 calls in Santa Rosa County over the past two years.

"In the last two years, we've called for another helicopter besides LifeFlight 24 times," Baker said.

County Commissioner W.D. 'Don' Salter, whose district includes Pace, said the area could benefit from additional resources being made available.

"It takes ambulances twice as long to respond to the residents of the north end of the county. As the north end of the county grows the need for emergency services increases," Salter said.

A Baptist Health Care representative said he didn't think there was any problem with the way the LifeFlight system currently operates.

"Our response is that this appears to be a solution to a problem that doesn' t exist," said Baptist Hospital Pensacola Administrator Mark Faulkner. "There's never been any issue about availability and response time."

Faulkner said LifeFlight pilots must wait for a landing zone to be set up by the first responders to an emergency call and that wait is sometimes reflected in response time.

"There are often cases where they are hovering over the scene because the landing zone has not been set up yet," Faulkner said.

Earlier this year, county commissioners released the findings of a report that measured ground ambulance response times. Commissioners requested LifeNet GulfFlight fund an addition to the study to measure air transport response times. Commissioners said they would wait for the outcome of the proposed additions to see if the second provider would be necessary.

In other county news:

After much heated debate, commissioners voted to approve $42,200 for engineering firm PBS&J to develop a District 5 Recreation Master Plan. District 5, represented by Commissioner John Broxson, includes the unincorporated areas of Gulf Breeze, Midway, and Tiger Point.

Commissioners Robert 'Bob' Cole and Gordon Goodin voted against the measure and expressed concerns that the expenditure might seem excessive. Both commissioners said it would not be frugal of them to spend that amount of money on a study at a time when the state legislature is looking to cut county budgets.

Commissioner Broxson said the money would come from his district's recreation funds and that county staff had done an excellent job negotiating the contract.

"PBS&J asked for $84,000 and we got it down to $42,000," Broxson said.