The new Children’s Hospital Colorado’s new Flight for Life helicopter prepares for a media tour on Thursday April 27, 2017 at Centennial Airport. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
The view of Children’s Hospital Colorado from their new Flight for Life helicopter during a media tour on Thursday April 27, 2017. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
The Cildren’s Hospital Colorado’s new Flight for Life helicopter takes off for a media tour on Thursday April 27, 2017 at Centennial Airport. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
Erixson Moore pilots the Childen’s Hospital Colorado’s new Flight for Life helicopter on Thursday April 27, 2017. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
Maree Burke, a flight nurse for Children’s Hosptial Colorado sits in the rear as Erixson Moore pilots the heicopter during a media tour on Thursday April 27, 2017. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
Inside of Children’s Hospital Colorado’s new Flight For LIfe Helicopter is an incubator that is easily installed or removed depending on the patient on Thursday April 27, 2017 at Centennial Airport. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel 
Maree Burke, a flight nurse for Children’s Hospital Colorado’s new Flight For LIfe helicopter helps to remove an incubator that is puts the NICU inside of the helicopter on Thursday April 27, 2017 at Centennial Airport. Photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel
AURORA | A team of nurses, therapists and pilots are putting a new spin on pediatric healthcare this month thanks to the launch of a new, infant-specific helicopter operated by Flight for Life Colorado and Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Housed in Centennial Airport, the new chopper will serve children ages newborn to four in a roughly 120-mile radius, shuttling them between treatment centers and reducing their time spent outside of a hospital, according to Kathy Mayer, a former flight nurse and current program manager of Flight for Life Colorado.
“It gives us some options in terms of the transport of neonates and young children,” Mayer said. “Not only will it get our team to that patient faster, but in some cases, at least, it will reduce their out-of-hospital time back.”
The new chopper, officially put into service May 1, is the sixth in the Flight for Life fleet, and brings the crew’s total number of vehicles, a combination of helicopters, planes and ambulances, to more than a dozen.
Sponsored by Flight for Life, Children’s Hospital and Centura Health, the first-of-its-kind whirlybird is equipped with several special ventilators, incubators and a slew of other medical equipment capable of providing care and stabilization inflight, according to Joe Darmofal, director of the flight team, EMS, and outreach and education at Children’s.
Darmofal added that the helicopter, an H130 Airbus, is roomier and quieter than others in the fleet.
“This aircraft gives us that room to provide better care inflight because of the additional width and space that we have … it’s also quieter and it’s got less vibration,” he said. “Kids are real prone to head bleeds, so that reduced vibration and that reduced noise is to reduce the risk of head bleeds. And that’s something we see lot a with kids … essentially it’s a stroke.”
To staff the new chopper, Children’s and Flight for Life added eight new employees, doubling the size of the current crew. For trips managed by the Children’s team, a nurse and a respiratory therapist accompany a pilot on each flight.
Dramofal said the busiest time of year for the Children’s team is during the so-called “respiratory” or flu season, from December through April, when unstable newborns could contract a cold that might significantly impede their breathing and quickly become life-threatening. He said the adult teams are typically busier in the summer, which is often called trauma season as people become more active and inevitably injured in the outdoors.
The helicopter is being leased from the Air Methods Corporation for a total sum of about $4 million, according to Mayer. The additional medical equipment onboard brings the total price tag closer to $4.6 million, she said.
Darmofal said the new workers hired to staff the aircraft will cost about $1 million in labor each year.
The price of a flight in the chopper is largely based on distance, according to Darmofal, who said the total cost typically ranges from $20,000 to $40,000.
“We like to say Flight for Life is not a cheap date,” he said.
But, he added, air medical firms that operate on a for-profit model, unlike Flight for Life and Children’s, can charge six-figure sums for some emergency trips.
The new chopper will only conduct inter-facility flights, often bringing children from rural hospitals to larger medical hubs near Denver or Aurora. Darmofal said the air medical team at Children’s travels across the western U.S., occasionally heading as far as Montana or North Dakota.
However, the new helicopter will stay in a roughly 120-mile radius, according to Mayer, who said beyond that threshold, a fixed-wing plane is a faster option. Helicopters typically travel about two miles every minute, which is nearly three times faster than ground transportation, but slower than a plane.
More than half of all medical evacuation transports are inter-facility rides, according to the Association of Air Medical Services.
The local Flight for Life crew performs about 4,000 trips annually, split between air and ground transportation, Darmofal said. About a quarter of those trips are conducted by the Children’s team.
Nationally, there are roughly 400,000 helicopter transports each year, according to the Association of Air Medical Services. The organization reports another 150,000 patients are transported in medically-equipped planes in the U.S. each year.