This region's ONLY rescue helicopter!
community, and that of those companies which have business interests/employees scattered throughout the region.
Stacey Lee
The Southern Alberta Medicair Society (HALO) is proud of its service record, and plans to put that pride on display this May 8-9 at the Southern Alberta Petroleum Show.
HALO services southeastern Alberta, responding to life-threatening incidents that occur outside a 30-minute driving radius (land ambulance) of Medicine Hat. Society chair Gerry Gaede says his team is hoping to raise awareness among the oil and gas community that its services are essential to crews on rural sites.
“The helicopter is a very useful tool for first responders… it always goes out to support or assist a ground-based ambulance, never instead of. For the oil patch it becomes an integral part of their first emergency response plan. We’ll have the helicopter at the show to create an awareness, so that the oil companies understand that this service is available to them via 9-1-1 services.”
The society, which is entirely donation- based, requires the generosity of Medicine Hat residents, the farming
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“We are coming up on five years of service and unfortunately we only seem to have two or three months of operating capital in the bank, so we are hopeful that some of those oil company CEOs will be (at the show) and will see the benefit HALO provides…help support us,” said Gaede.
With a budget of just $840,000 for the year, Gaede said, the society operates on a budget of only $2 a minute. "It costs the society about $2,200 per day to operate.”
With the helicopter on standby 24 hours a day, 365 days each year, community support/funding is essential to ensuring a timely rescue should an emergency arise.
“We can operate within a 100-mile/160 kilometre range of the city of Medicine Hat… within about 100 miles we can be to the scene of an incident within 45 minutes. That has us reaching Bassano, into the Jenner country in the northwest, into Acadia Valley to the northeast, and the Wild Horse border crossing south of Elkwater.”
Gaede says that HALO does save lives, recounting a rescue on Highway 41 (near Oyen) last June wherein the service it provided was essential.
“First responders arrived on scene and THE WESTERN CANADIAN PIPELINE | APRIL 2012
pronounced the driver dead. When the paramedic from our helicopter arrived she decided to check the patient herself, and discovered that the patient was indeed alive. She took steps to save his life, they were able to extract him from the wreckage, got him on the helicopter, and got him back to Medicine Hat.”
Gaede says that six weeks following the rescue that individual hobbled into the HALO hanger on crutches hoping to meet the pilot and see the helicopter that saved his life.
“It isn’t the society’s helicopter, it is the community’s helicopter," said Gaede. "If they want us to continue servicing southeastern Alberta they have to get behind us financially, people from all walks of life need this.”
Statistically, Gaede says, of its 110 calls 25 per cent have been responses to life-threatening incidents within Medicine Hat and Redcliff. HALO has also responded to the needs of those recreating in the Elkwater area, and even to a search and rescue operation near Brooks.
He adds that the helicopter can reach into the southwestern region of Saskatchewan, but cannot respond to emergencies there unless invited to do so by EMS on that side of the border.
Further information on the society, or to make a financial contribution to the essential service, call 403-528-9088 or visit
www.medicairsociety.com.
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