Ontario Air Ambulance Accident

[Urbanmedic461]

One pilot is still in hospital in Sudbury. The other pilot and medic are in Toronto, this is from a medic at ornge Sudbury base.

[Urbanmedic461]

Names have been released.

Ornge committed to providing quality health care to Ontario patients

Flight paramedics recovering from injuries sustained in Friday's accident

TORONTO, Feb. 11 /CNW/ - The dedicated men and women of Ornge, and the families who support them remain committed to providing quality care to the citizens of Ontario. Each and every day, with little regard for themselves they are called upon to assist those who are critically ill and injured.

Friday February 8th was no different. While en route to meet a land ambulance the helicopter from Sudbury was involved in an accident. The paramedics on board were Ornge Critical Care flight paramedic Dennis Quenneville, who has been with the air program for the past 11 years and Rob Bird, a 23 year veteran. Bird was treated and released from hospital on Saturday.

Quenneville remains in hospital and is being treated for serious but non-life threatening injuries. Also on board were Canadian Helicopters Limited pilots Greg Harper and Michael Bain who also remain in hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

"Our flight paramedics care for critically ill and injured patients, these hard working men and women are highly skilled and are capable of providing hospital level complex care in the transport environment," said Dr. Chris Mazza, Ornge President and CEO. "Our medical team includes flight paramedics, transport nurses and transport medicine physicians, who always put the quality care of patients first, I hold them and the pilots in very high regard," he added.

"I want to commend the brave men and women of Ornge who risk their lives everyday," said George Smitherman, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. "Our thoughts are with those paramedics and pilots who were injured and we wish them a speedy recovery." Since the air program began 30 years ago, the rotor wing operation has exceeded 150,000 hours of accident free flying. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is currently investigating the cause of the accident.

Ornge operates from a number of bases across the province and performs over 18,000 admissions annually. It coordinates all aspects of Ontario's aero medical transport system, the new critical care land transport program, and the authorization of air and land ambulance transfers between hospitals. Ornge is dedicated to the provision of high quality patient care through innovative

transport medicine.

For further information: Christine Bujold, Communications Officer, (416) 531-7577

[jw-c152]

This is one of the safest Air Ambulance programs in the world (see the stats in the post above). But accidents will happen...

[unknown]

Yes, They will happen, it is unavoidable. We can be the safest and do every thing by the letter and something can and will happen it seems...........

Prayers for a speedy recovery of and and YES thank God no one was killed.

[Dustdevil]

Two pilots?

What kind of equipment were they on?

[akflightmedic]

Two pilots?

What kind of equipment were they on?

Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, see link below for cool pics

http://krisabel.ctv.ca/blog/_archives/2006/8/28/2273726.html

Here is a snippet from the blog..

The fleet can reach any community in the province and picks up an average of 17,000 critical patients every year. It requires round-the-clock teams including 244 flight paramedics (not counting the pilots) who are specially trained for emergency medical care.

Wow thats a lot of critical patients....!!!! What are they doing up there???

[Dustdevil]

Dude, they splashed an S-76??!!

That's blasphemy! :shock:

They should hold a memorial service for the bird!

[Acosell]

Most of those 17,000 "critical" patients were not critical at all. Last year, there was something like 18,000 admissions to the system, and that includes everything from patients that are actually critically ill, all the way down to the milk run 300km trip to the nearest CT machine.

Anyway, here are some more stats from I think 2006:

18,077 "Admissions" handled by

244 Flight Paramedics staffing

13 S-76As and

54 various fixed wing aircraft stationed at

26 different bases of operation covering

1 million square kilometers, home to

13 million people.

[Urbanmedic461]

Sorry for the size of the pic, but this is the biggest picture I could find on the internet.