Intermountain Press Release

Salt Lake City—This week, Intermountain Healthcare's Life Flight medical air transport service reached a medical milestone - it performed its 101st hoist rescue - a feat that has not only helped save the lives of injured and stranded patients stuck in rugged terrain over the past five years, but also the lives of those who are trying to rescue them.

Life Flight began its hoist rescue program in the spring of 2001 in an effort to help protect search and rescue personnel and injured patients from the numerous hazards and obstacles they often face in a highly difficult and lengthy rescue. Life Flight is the only civilian program in Utah and the United States that is certified by the Federal Aviation Administration to perform hoist rescues.

On Thursday, search and rescue personnel from throughout the state, past hoist rescue patients, and members of the Life Flight team will gathered on the helipad atop LDS Hospital to mark this medical milestone.

"The hoist program has become an invaluable tool for search and rescue teams that, in the past, often had to put themselves in a significant amount of danger to reach someone who was injured or stranded in very rugged terrain that was difficult to reach from the ground," says Bill Butts, Life Flight's director of operations. "We are very pleased with the success of the program and the positive impact it's had on search and rescue teams and injured patients."

The hoist is attached to Life Flight's specially-designed, high-performance Agusta 109 K2 helicopters, which are built for high-altitude flying. The hoist is electronically operated by a flight nurse inside the cabin of the helicopter. The rescuer, a paramedic, is lowered down to the patient via a 164-foot stainless steel, spin-resistant cable, where he or she then coordinates evacuation efforts. The patient is then loaded into a basket or harness and transported a short distance to a safe landing zone.

Doug Bassett is one of the patients whose life was saved by Life Flight and its hoist. He was on a hunting trip in a Cache County canyon in 2002 when he missed his step and fell off a cliff. But he only fell partway down, so the rescue teams that went looking for him couldn't find him, although they searched for a day and a half. Frustrated searchers called in Life Flight and the team spotted him in less than eight minutes, he says. "I didn't fall to the bottom where you hunt for people. I was two-thirds of the way down on a shelf."

He was also grievously injured, with a brain injury from an inch deep head fracture, a leg that doctors wanted to amputate, near kidney failure, and a body temperature that was way too low. By the time the air crew came looking for him, his chance of survival was dwindling - and the rapid response changed his outcome.

Over the past five years, more than 125 patients have been rescued via the Life Flight hoist. Even when multiple patients are hoisted from a scene, Life Flight only counts it as one mission.

Intermountain Life Flight has served patients in the Intermountain West for 28 years and is one of the most renown air transport programs in the country. When Life Flight was created in 1978, it was the seventh air ambulance service in the U.S. In the 28 years since then, Life Flight's crews have transported roughly 50,000 patients over 6 million miles. Last year, it transported nearly 4,000 patients more than 800,000 total miles.

This week's hoist rescue involved two hikers in Neff's Canyon on Mt. Olympus who were injured after falling in rugged terrain more than 40 feet. Life Flight was able to safely hoist the two hikers to safety and they were transported to area hospitals for additional care.

"In search and rescue operations you want to be able to get to people in need as soon as you can, but you don't want to endanger the lives of the rescuers who are trying to reach them. Having the hoist allows us to reach people who are in dangerous situations without creating additional risk for search and rescue teams," says Tooele County Sheriff Frank Parks.