Helipad project takes flight
MATHER – Just before noon Thursday, a LifeFlight helicopter became the first aircraft to land on a new helipad in Mather.
Exiting the aircraft, the pilot and crew were greeted by Morgan Township officials, Jefferson volunteer firefighters and others who came to mark the opening of the new facility.
The completion of the helipad couldn’t have come sooner.
What was not part of the ceremony and was very much unplanned, the helicopter also made its first patient transport from the site. Just as the aircraft was ready to lift off about 12:30 p.m., an ambulance arrived with a 60-year-old woman suffering an apparent stroke.
“I guess this pad is up and running,” Morgan Township Supervisor Shirl Barnhart said afterwards. “It already is helping people in the community.”
Built next to Morgan Township Municipal Building just off Third Street in Mather, the helipad was developed by the township and the fire company to make it safer and more efficient to airlift critically ill or injured patients to the hospital.
It’s a question of “resource management,” said Eric Burwell, the fire company’s EMS director. Before the construction of the helipad, ambulance personnel had to call a fire truck and crew to set up a landing zone, he said.
At times, crews had to clear snow from a parking lot or transport a patient across a soggy field, which can be very difficult, Burwell said. One time last winter, a helicopter circled Jefferson-Morgan High School until the fire company could clear the parking lot of snow.
It didn’t take long to clear the lot, Jefferson fire Lt. Joe Petek said, but when a patient might have suffered a stroke or heart attack, time is of the essence.
The helipad, a 75- by-75 concrete slab surrounded by a low fence, does away with the need for the ambulance crew to call out the fire department to prepare a landing zone, Burwell said.
“Hopefully, when we pull in with a patient, we can easily get him loaded and get him out,” he said. “Time is always the biggest issue, it’s the critical issue; for stroke and heart attack patients, you only have so much time.”
The township and fire company talked about the need for the helipad for several years. The township started preparing the site last year, Barnhart said.
The township leveled the property and relocated utility lines that crossed it, he said. It then had contractors construct the pad and erect the fence.
It used some of its Act 13 impact fee money for the project, but also received donations from EQT and Chevron, Barnhart said.
Dave Arnold Tree Service donated time to remove several large trees from the site and Town and Country Fencing Co. donated labor costs on the fence.
The township and fire company also received guidance on the project from Allegheny Health Network, the Pittsburgh-based health care provider with which the fire company works.
“We believe it’s something that will help the community,” Barnhart said. “We have a lot of elderly people here and we don’t have a trauma center close by and sometime we have to ship people a little farther,” he said.
The pilot of the Lifeflight helicopter also could appreciate the new helipad.
Many times landing at an accidents scene, pilots “have to worry about lights, poles, radio towers and things like that,” said Mike Dunn, who flies for Metro Aviation Inc., which provides pilots to Allegheny Health Network’s LifeFlight.
“Here, it’s already a given. It’s fixed. They don’t have to know what’s around here.” Dunn said. “As opposed to landing in a field, it’s a lot safer.”
Other fire departments in the area are welcome to use the new helipad, Burwell said. Flight services in the area have also been made aware of it and been given information including its coordinates and site description, he said.