Greenwich First Responders Conduct Helicopter Airlift Drill

GREENWICH, CT — The sound of helicopter rotor blades cutting through the air reverberated throughout downtown Greenwich on Monday morning, as the town conducted an emergency drill officials hope never actually comes to fruition.

Greenwich police, fire and EMS personnel gathered in Havemeyer Field around 10:30 a.m. to go over the procedures for the emergency airlift of a critically injured patient to a nearby hospital or trauma center.

Don MacMillan, program director for Yale New Haven SkyHealth II, said the Greenwich Emergency Management team reached out about conducting a drill. Officials from the town and Yale New Haven Health met, reviewed procedures that were already in place, and made some tweaks for Tuesday's test run.

The helicopter, a 2014 EC135 manufactured by Eurocopter, which is now Airbus, came to Greenwich from Sikorksy Airport in Stratford in just 12 minutes, MacMillan said. The aircraft can travel two miles a minute and can reach 160 mph.

Yale New Haven Health has another SkyHealth helicopter, and the two travel within a 200-mile radius of New Haven.

On average, SkyHealth lift-off is within 10 minutes from when a call is received, according to Yale New Haven Health.

First responders on the ground will determine where they want the patient to go depending on the severity of injuries and condition, and the SkyHealth flight crew, which consists of a pilot, paramedic and nurse, will transport the patient to the appropriate facility.

Weather conditions are one of the biggest factors if the crew can accept a mission or not, MacMillan said.

Clinical capabilities on the helicopter include:

• Full ICU capabilities while en route
• Invasive and non-invasive monitoring
• Multiple channel IV pumps
• Intra-aortic balloon pump
• Advanced airway and ventilation management

The helicopter landed on Havemeyer Field and a stretcher from the aircraft was rolled out for a potential patient. Greenwich's Emergency Management Director Joseph Laucella looked on.

"You never know what kind of hazard we can have, and you want to be prepared for every hazard," he told Patch. "Resources like this are invaluable."

Laucella said the helicopter would be useful during large scale incidents where too many patients could overwhelm local hospitals. It could also reach areas in the event highways are shut down or backed up with traffic, or if someone needs to go quickly to a specialized facility like the Connecticut Burn Center at Bridgeport Hospital.

A big part of Monday's drill was also to work on communication.

"It's important for us to train and make sure we can communicate well with the helicopter. Part of this drill was a communication drill with us being able to dispatch these resources and stay in communication," Laucella said.

Laucella said he hopes the drill never turns into a real-life scenario.

"Just like all of our plans, we hope we never have to put this into action," he said. "We have a great team here that works nonstop to look at all possible situations and train for those to the best of our ability."