About Life Flight

When time counts, count on Life Flight.

Life Flight is more than just helicopters, airplanes, and ambulances. Life Flight's aircraft are essentially mobile intensive care units. We bring highly specialized emergency equipment and medical personnel to critically ill or injured patients in remote areas or accident scenes where time is of the essence.

Life Flight transports patients by helicopter, fixed wing aircraft, or ground. Our skilled medical crews consist of highly trained and experienced nurses, paramedics, respiratory therapists, and physicians who provide patients with the best possible care during transport.

Our services include fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, search and rescue, rescue-hoist victim extraction, and neonatal air and ground transportation. Services provided by Life Flight also include transports between facilities, and search and rescue. The cost of assisting search efforts and conducting rescues is donated by Life Flight. Charges for service are based on the mileage and time spent with the patient, from point of pick up to the receiving hospital. Ability to pay never affects delivery of service.

Life Flight Facts

• Intermountain Life Flight began service on July 6, 1978, the 7th air medical transport program in the U.S. and has transported 52,546 patients since it began.
• Life Flight has flown 6,778,138 patient related miles; 53% of all transports are children; 26% of all Life Flight patients are in a fixed wing aircraft (airplane); 30% of helicopter flights are to scene locations.
• Life Flight is the first and only civilian air ambulance organization in the United States certified by the FAA to conduct hoist rescue operations. The first patient hoist was done on May 29, 1999. There have been 89 completed hoist missions since then, some with multiple patients. In January 2006 three patients, three search and rescue members and a 250 pound equipment load was hoisted from Mt. Olympus.
• An average of 10.3 patients are transported every day by Life Flight.
• 217 people are full or part-time employees of Intermountain Healthcare Life Flight.
• Life Flight was the first Utah air medical service to be accredited by the Commission of Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS).
• The Life Flight Communications Center has two dispatchers on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
• Life Flight is the first flight program in Utah where all three crewmembers wear night vision goggles during night missions; one set of goggles costs $10,000.
• All three Life Flight fixed wing aircraft have the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) installed.