Life Flight Again Has Base for Copter in North County

After going more than a year without a base of operations in North San Diego County, Life Flight has stationed a helicopter and emergency medical team at Palomar Airport, officials announced Tuesday.

Life Flight officials say the new headquarters, at the McDonnell Douglas helicopter facility on the airport’s western edge, will significantly reduce the service’s response time to North County emergencies.

Until May, 1985, Life Flight had operated out of Tri-City Hospital in Oceanside, but the helicopter service pulled out after hospital officials announced plans to begin charging more than $5,000 a month in rent.

During the past year, Life Flight has been dispatching helicopters from San Diego to tackle serious accidents or illnesses in North County communities.

Life Flight opened shop at Palomar Airport on Monday and almost immediately demonstrated the logistical advantages of having a North County base.

A three-member helicopter team dispatched Monday to a traffic accident on nearby Palomar Airport Road reached the scene within about three minutes. The trip would have taken 15 minutes longer if the helicopter had been stationed in San Diego.

Mary Cunanan, Life Flight program coordinator, stressed, however, that the service provided by Life Flight to the North County has remained effective during the past year, even though no helicopter was stationed in the area.

“I don’t think our service has been compromised,” Cunanan said. “This simply makes a good thing even better.”

Oceanside officials said they were pleased to see Life Flight back in the area. The lack of a helicopter base in North County helped fuel a dispute between city and county officials over San Diego County’s trauma care system.

Last summer, Oceanside officials prohibited their paramedics from transporting accident victims to a designated trauma center, arguing that the practice was leaving the city unprotected for too long. The closest trauma centers are in Escondido and La Jolla.

Previously, the Life Flight helicopter assigned to North County had been stationed at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla during the day. At night, it was moved to UC San Diego Medical Center because Scripps sometimes is hit by coastal fog and lacks adequate sleeping quarters for the pilot.

Now, Life Flight helicopters are based at UCSD Medical Center and Palomar Airport. A third chopper acts as a backup on weekdays and is stationed at Gillespie Field in El Cajon on weekends.

Cunanan said Life Flight signed a one-year pact with McDonnell Douglas last week to use its helipad and rent three rooms for sleeping quarters, equipment storage and office space. While she would not go into specifics of the deal, Cunanan said the monthly rent is about a third of what Tri-City had demanded.

In addition to cost savings, the Palomar Airport base has several operational advantages over the unit’s headquarters at Tri-City Hospital, Cunanan said. The airport has fuel and facilities for washing the aircraft or doing routine maintenance, something Tri-City lacked.

Life Flight helicopters transport patients to one of six hospitals designated by the county for treating trauma patients or to the seven other hospitals with helipads.