LifeFlight Helicopter

When to Dispatch:

The following are guidelines for calling Life Flight in an emergency.

Life Flight is available 24 hours/day by calling Dispatch at 1.800.991.7363.

Early dispatch is encouraged; call even if you think you may need a helicopter. Calling early may save your patient’s life. Life Flight can be canceled at any time if you decide it is not needed with no charge to patient or service.

When in doubt, call us out!

Mechanism of Injury

Call Life Flight if your patient:

• Is involved in a motor vehicle crash (MVC) with:
  
  • associated fatalities in any involved vehicle
  • speed greater than 55 mph, or 35 mph without seatbelts
  • structural intrusion into occupied compartment
  • rollover
  • ejection from vehicle
  • prolonged extrication time greater than 15 minutes
  • head-on at highway speeds
• Has fallen greater then 2 times his/her height
• Is a pedestrian who has been struck by a vehicle traveling faster than 25 mph
• Is involved in a near drowning or cold water submersion
• Has burns with:
  
  • any respiratory difficulty
  • patients younger than 14 or older than 55 years old
  • all electrical burns
  • 2nd and 3rd degree burns to face, hands, feet or genital area
  • burns over any fracture
  • evidence of eye or facial burn
  • circumferential 2nd or 3rd degree burns to any extremity

You can also call Life Flight when any of these anatomical considerations are involved:

• Possible loss of sight, limb or life
• Multiple orthopedic injuries or orthopedic injuries requiring smooth transport
• Pelvic trauma
• Paralysis of extremities
• Spinal immobilization requiring smooth transport
• Oral/facial trauma requiring placement of airway adjuncts
• Penetrating injury, impaled objects, or gun shot wounds mid-thigh to head
• Decreased or loss of function of extremity
• Blunt thoracic injury, abdominal injury, or flail chest with respiratory or hemodynamic compromise
• Amputation or near amputation

You can also call Life Flight if the patient has the following medical considerations:

• Chest pain
• Shortness of breath, difficulty breathing
• Decreased level of consciousness or decreased ability to respond, Glascow Coma Scale less than 10.
• Severe hypothermia or hyperthermia
• Suspected stroke
• Poisoning/overdose

It is also appropriate to call Life Flight when:

• The trauma patient is pregnant, younger than 14 years old or older than 55 years old
• The time to St. Patrick Hospital and Health Sciences Center by land would be greater than 15 minutes
• The patient is in a remote location that involves prolonged arrival or transport by ground agencies (back country, roadless/wilderness areas)
• Aiding in a Mass Casualty Incident that would otherwise inundate local EMS and hospital resources
• A HAZMAT incident occurs and the patients are fully decontaminated as indicated by HAZMAT commander
• EMS/Law Enforcement (Highway Patrol, Sheriff, Police) requests our service
• The patient is located in an area where air transport is faster and/or safer
• Patient transport by a local ambulance would leave the local community without EMS coverage

Location:

Granite County Medical Center
310 Sansome Street
Philipsburg, MT 59858
1 (406) 859-3271