A ribbon-cutting at the Vail Valley Jet Center on Tuesday marked the beginning of helicopter medical service in what Dr. Chip Woodland called “a huge hole in the state.”

Woodland is Chief Medical Officer of Vail Valley Medical Center and worked in partnership for three years to bring a chopper to the area, which will serve Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield counties as well as Steamboat Springs.

Prior to Monday, when TriState CareFlight officially opened its Eagle County base, the nearest medical air service was in Summit County. Next to be called was Montrose and then Grand Junction. The mountainous area between those areas — the Vail, Eagle and Colorado River valleys — is the “hole” to which Woodland referred.

Woodland said the flight service means places such as Aspen and Glenwood are only 15 minutes away when minutes really count.

“I couldn't tell you where to put another service and make it work. This is very centrally located to the area it will be serving,” said Scott Stamper, who works in business development for CareFlight. “Having the airport here also means we have fuel readily available, a control tower and food and shelter for the crew.”

The air service opened as VVMC is working through the final stages of starting an urgent care facility in Gypsum.

“They just coincidentally came together at the same time,” Woodland said.

“The main use of this service will be to transfer patients to a higher level of care when necessary,” Woodland said. “The helicopter will also be available to respond to emergency situations working in conjunction with local EMS.”

The crew

The CareFlight crew will live in a facility at the Jet Center similar to where firemen live in a fire station. The on-duty staff will sleep, shower and eat there 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

One flight crew consists of a pilot, paramedic and registered nurse. They are all accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems. A “CAMTS” logo adorns the aircraft, which Lisa Joestlein, the Eagle County CareFlight base manager, said is hard-earned.

The pilots are highly experienced and skilled at altitude, said Chris Tuman, CareFlight's chief pilot. Tuman trains and oversees all of the company's pilots, making trips from his post at CareFlight's Arizona headquarters.

At the Jet Center, the pilots will work a “seven-seven” schedule, which means seven days on, seven days off. At least one of the pilots is planning to move to the Eagle Valley. Others will commute from such places as Fort Collins and Park City, Utah.

However, 24-hour service won't be fully operational until about mid-March, Joestlein said. Tuman said that's because the pilots are still taking day flights to learn the lay of the land thoroughly before they have to fly through it at night.

The nurses and paramedics will work a two-two schedule. Joestlein is currently renting an apartment in Gypsum and plans to move her family to the area from Ohio once she gets more settled. Some of the other nurses, she said, commute from Denver.

“I'm thrilled to be here,” Joestlein said. “We ski, raft and do all that stuff.”

Specs of the bird

The helicopter now stationed at the Eagle Valley Airport is a Eurochopper A5350 B3, the same model that set a world record by landing twice on the summit of Mount Everest in 2005. Everest is the highest point on the globe, at 29,035 feet. Extremely thin air at that altitude made the landings a challenge and showcased the abilities of the B3.

“In theory, the B3 is known for its higher altitude capabilities,” Tuman said.

High altitude is certainly the kind of challenge the central Rocky Mountains is known to present. Tuman said the B3 in Eagle County has a ceiling of about 23,000 feet and is equipped to carry a pilot, paramedic, nurse and patient. The chopper has oxygen, a small ventilator, suction devices and a cardiac monitor, to name a few items.

“It's basically a flying ICU,” Woodland said.

CareFlight's B3 can travel at 155 knots, or about 170 miles per hour. It's average range, depending on weight and balance configurations, is about 250 miles, or two hours, Tuman said.

“Another reason it's handy to be based out of the airport is because sometimes we have to offload fuel to lighten the load and have just enough to get to the destination,” Stamper said.

One of the reasons the craft can handle altitude so well is that it's comparatively small. Every bit of space is used. The patient will be placed lying down on a board that fits next to the pilot, with the patient's feet going into the nose of the helicopter. The paramedic and nurse will sit near the patient's head in the back.

Tuman said besides the crew and equipment, the chopper can carry up to 350 pounds. However, in order to carry added weight so far in front of the craft, ballast had to be added in the tail so the chopper wouldn't dip forward in flight.

The partnership

Woodland and Dr. Reginald Francoise got the go-ahead to research the viability of an air transport service from VVMC's board of directors in early 2008. Woodland said the process started a couple years even before that.

“It kind of stalled out and then was revitalized in 2008,” he said. “Steamboat and Aspen did research with us to make sure the numbers made since.”

Woodland said TriState called a few months ago and expressed interest after hearing what the hospital was doing.

“Their corporate culture and mission seemed to match with ours,” he said, adding that he and Stamper have pretty much been the administrators of the project since then.

Stamper said his brother, Dr. Blake Stamper, started CareFlight. Blake Stamper is a pilot as well as a practicing orthopedic surgeon and is a major shareholder of the company along with his dad.

“We're a family business,” said Scott Stamper.

Scott Stamper said it's his job to find areas in Colorado and New Mexico that are interested in getting medical air service.

“I heard through the grapevine that Vail was looking, I made a phone call and hooked up with Dr. Woodland,” he said. “I told him we were already the ones operating in Montrose and Grand Junction, and that made it pretty easy.”

Woodland said in the press release that the agreement with CareFlight will work well.

“They provide the equipment, paramedics and flight nurses, and VVMC will provide the medical director,” he said. “Though the service is not a revenue generator for VVMC, the partnership provides a level of patient care essential for a hospital of our caliber.”

Francoise was unavailable for comment because he was performing a surgery at the time.