Campbell River鈥檚 Technical Evacuation Advanced Aero Medical (TEAAM) base is up and running, with crews ready to respond quickly to emergencies in hard-to-reach places on Vancouver Island and the North Coast.
鈥淲hat we do is different than search and rescue and different than ambulance,鈥� said Miles Randell, president of TEAAM Aeromedical. 鈥淚t鈥檚 called 鈥榤edically directed rescue.鈥� We marry the level of medical care with the ability to rescue someone.
鈥淎n example I鈥檒l give is that we can fly out, lower someone down on a long line, and if it鈥檚 a rolled over logging truck, not only can we provide advanced life support and critical medical care, but we can also provide the auto extrication,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e can cut the person out of that vehicle with the Jaws of Life. Then we can bring them up into the aircraft to fly direct to the most appropriate hospital.鈥�
The placement in Campbell River means that TEAAM can make good use of their two-hour-and-20-minute flight time before refuelling. At a speed of about 175 km/h, that puts the range of helicopters at around 400 km in any direction. Randell said their response time is about 鈥渁 tenth of the time frame that it would take an ambulance to get someone out of those situations.鈥�
While the model is seen elsewhere in the world, Randell said there isn鈥檛 much like it in North America.
鈥淚t鈥檚 quite a bit different than anything that鈥檚 been done in Canada previously. In Switzerland they started doing this about 54 years ago. Australia and New Zealand are similar,鈥� he said. 鈥淲here we are now (at a conference in) Austin, Texas, there鈥檚 a service that does a similar thing that includes firefighting. It鈥檚 one of only a couple in the US that does something similar. It鈥檚 very different from what鈥檚 been provided in Canada previously.鈥�
The base launched on August 10. TEAAM held an open house at the Campbell River Airport, which was attended by supporters like the Truck Loggers Association, Interfor, Western Forest Products, as well as Vancouver Island Helicopters, 49 North and others. Those partners helped with fundraising to get the equipment TEAAM needed for the launch.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a long process, most of it was fundraising to make sure we had the equipment to launch the base. We did pretty well with human resources. What we do is so very different, interesting and exciting,鈥� Randell said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got some incredible folks that work with us now in the Campbell River area. It took about a year for us to get enough funding to launch the Medevac capability. We鈥檙e still fundraising to be able to add the rescue capability to it.鈥�
While as of Aug. 18 there hasn鈥檛 been any deployments of the service, TEAAM did do one mission before the official launch.
鈥淲e had one previous deployment before we launched the base,鈥� Randell said. 鈥淲e went and picked up a patient with a respiratory condition. We looked at launching that out of Squamish, but the weather was bad.
鈥淚t was equidistant between the Squamish base and the Campbell River base. We were able to put something together at the drop of the hat with some dedicated team members who jumped into a helicopter鈥� and made it happen.鈥�
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marc.kitteringham@campbellrivermirror.com
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