PORTLAND, Ind. (21ALIVE) -- Lutheran Hospital has made a change to shift the coverage area of its medical helicopters.
One of two air transport units has been re-located from Fort Wayne to an airport 50 miles south of the city.
A hangar at the Portland Indiana Municipal Airport is the new home for what's called "Lutheran Air 1."
It acts like a flying emergency room.
The pilot sits at the controls, while a specially trained paramedic and nurse ride in the back with the patient.
The staff has access to the kinds of medications and instruments found in a regular ambulance, used to treat a heart patient or accident victim at speeds of 150 mph, as the craft wings towards one of a number of hospitals in this part of the Midwest.
October 26th, Lutheran re-situated one of its two medical helicopters in Portland, to better serve East Central Indiana and West Central Ohio.
Patients in distress in Fort Wayne can generally be whisked to a hospital by 1st responders on the ground.
"It's the rural communities that have the longer transport time and there's many things, health-care wise, that have a limited time to fix. Heart, head, all kinds of things, trauma that have a limited time frame and we need to get care to them quicker," said Krista Quinones, a Vice-President overseeing critical care air transport services for Lutheran.
If a call for help comes in and the weather conditions allow for safe flight, the crew can scramble to lift off and get to a scene without the obstacles faced by an ambulance crew.
Parkview Hospital operates medical helicopters out of Fort Wayne and Rochester Indiana, making more than a thousand runs a year.
The location shift to Portland by Lutheran helps patients in outlying areas south of the city to know that if they're hit with an emergency, help is on the way is not just an empty phrase.
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