B
lue and orange whizzing by is a familiar site in Gainesville, Florida. On a fall Saturday, it can be a University of Florida
football player flying down the field. In the spring, it’s often a Gator going for a thee-point goal during March Madness®
.
However, most of the time it’s something even more vital than NCAA sports that’s flashing by—it’s a ShandsCair ambulance. Those road warriors are a welcome site for anyone needing urgent care. Moreover, residents of the college town can look up and often see those same colors landing at one of Gainesville’s hospitals in the form of a ShandsCair helicopter. The patient aboard may be a local citizen, or they may have been transported from as far away as Pensacola or Miami—without refueling— to receive timely treatment at UF Health Shands Hospital.
HELICOPTER HISTORY ShandsCair
has
been operating
helicopters and medical transport for 32 years, so they are HEMS veterans. The operation was very different back in 1981, when they commenced with just a fixed-wing program catering to the transport of premature infants. The need was soon realized for a full-service air medical operation in November of that year. Emergency
helicopter transports
commenced a month later, when a Bell 206 Long Ranger was purchased to begin rotary operations. ShandsCair proved to be a needed, well-utilized service that soon required replacing the Long Ranger in favor of a larger airframe. The decision was made to purchase an Airbus Helicopters AS365 Dauphin.
The Dauphin remained in service until 2004, when a new Agusta A109 Power aircraft replaced it. That helicopter served the community until 2012 and amassed over 4,000 hours during its service. What ShandsCair learned from operating the A109 was that their capability was limited by the size of the aircraft for missions
32 September 2014
needing more space, such as bariatric cases. After much consideration, the program returned to an Airbus Helicopters airframe when two EC135s were delivered in 2012. ShandsCair 2 went into service in February of that year, followed shortly by the delivery of ShandsCair 3 in November.
Due to both increasing demand and
the continual need to advance in-flight patient care, three years ago the planning phase began on the purchase of a state- of-the-art EC155 medical helicopter. It was delivered this year, factory-fresh from France. While waiting for delivery, an additional EC135 was brought in for a year and a half to replace the ageing Augusta 109 that was retired.
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