PROVO — A Life Flight helicopter is now available at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center around the clock instead of 12 hours a day.
Intermountain Health Care purchased two helicopters — one of which once belonged to auto racing legend Dale Earnhardt — to boost its Life Flight coverage of central Utah from Point of the Mountain to Wayne County.
Keeping a Life Flight helicopter and crew permanently at the ready in Provo will shave off the extra 15 to 20 minutes it took to respond from Salt Lake City to Provo or anywhere farther south during the half-day when no helicopter was stationed in the region.
Those hours where the hospital helipad sat empty each day were of particular concern for trauma patients in rural areas, said Gary Beck, administrator of Sevier Valley Hospital in Richfield.
"The most important thing for Richfield and some of the smaller rural hospitals is this will knock off about 20 minutes of transport time, and 20 minutes in a medical emergency can be a lifetime," he said.
The two new IHC helicopters are used, single-engine Bell 407s, but pilots John Lords and John Campbell said they are essentially as fast as Life Flight's two twin-engine Augusta K2 models. The K2s are specially designed for high-altitude flights and extreme weather conditions.
IHC Life Flight already staffs a helicopter around the clock at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden and another that alternates between LDS Hospital and Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The Earnhardt helicopter is assigned to Provo and the other Bell 407 will rotate into one of the three locations when one of the machines needs maintenance work, Life Flight executive director Jerry Morrison said.
Campbell took Earnhardt's former helicopter for a short spin over Provo High School for a demonstration Monday. Life Flight director of operations Bill Butts said the chopper came with a leather interior, air conditioning and a beautiful paint job of Earnhardt's red racing color and family crest.
Life Flight purchased the helicopter and the other Bell 407 in September and took three months to retrofit and repaint it. The air-conditioning unit was removed to lighten the craft. Earnhardt's family sold his helicopter after he died of head injuries Feb. 18, 2001, when his car slammed head-on into the wall on the final lap of the Daytona 500.
IHC expanded Life Flight to half-day coverage in Utah County about five years ago, and the company's board approved the increase to 24 hours a day because of an increase in the number of patients at Utah Valley.
UVRMC administrator Mary Ann Young said the hospital transported 114 trauma patients on Life Flight last year. They transported 75 in 2001 — and have increased each year.
"We've seen the numbers increase dramatically," she said.
The medical center is also expanding its emergency room from 19 to 31 treatment areas and adding a second trauma room.
The expansions are a reflection of population growth in Utah Valley and UVRMC's quest for certification as a Level II trauma center, Young said.
Beck believes the Provo-based helicopter will serve people from around the world who come to central Utah to recreate.
"I don't think people on the Wasatch Front understand that most of them go out to the rural areas for recreation, and as you're coming down to hunt, fish and visit Capitol Reef, you want the same access to emergency medical services that you have at home," he said.
"The same goes for tourists. People worldwide will benefit from this."
The flight time from Salt Lake City to Richfield is about 50 minutes.
"To permanently reduce that time by 20 minutes is really big," Beck said.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com