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'It's just terrible. It's such a loss.'

Thoughts and prayers pour in for three killed in Med Flight crash

Tamira Madsen, Steve Elbow and Bill Novak  —  5/12/2008 7:31 pm

Thoughts and prayers are pouring in for the UW Hospital Med Flight crew of three killed Saturday night when the helicopter crashed on a bluff near La Crosse.

UW Health set up a tribute web site for Dr. Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne and pilot Steve Lipperer and as of 8 a.m. Monday, three dozen messages had been posted, many from colleagues at UW Hospital, as well as from hospitals around the state.

The helicopter crash was the first for Med Flight since the program began in 1985.

UW Hospital has one other Med Flight helicopter, but it will not be able to resume flights until cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration.

With the second Med Flight helicopter out of service, Dane County Emergency Medical Services will rely on medical helicopters in Rockford, Ill., and possibly Milwaukee, for help, said Dane County EMS coordinator J. Timothy Hillebrand.

"Flight for Life has two helicopters in Milwaukee and REACT has a helicopter in Rockford," Hillebrand said Monday. "We'll most likely use the REACT helicopter if we need to."

REACT, or Regional Emergency Acute Care Transport, has one helicopter based at Rockford Memorial Hospital, serving a 14-county region in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, according to the Rockford Health System web site.

EMS services in Dane County are provided by local or regional EMS district ambulances. Hillebrand said the three local hospitals in Madison, UW Hospital, St. Mary's and Meriter, don't operate EMS units.

There are 27 EMS districts in Dane County.

Dane County EMS uses Med Flight on a regular basis, "for car crashes more so than anything else," Hillebrand said.

Dr. Bean and Coyne were also working on a program to use Med Flight for critical heart patients.

"They wanted to be able to do a quick transfer of cardiac patients to UW Hospital," Hillebrand said.

The news of the helicopter crash was hard on staff at the Dane County EMS headquarters at the Public Safety Building downtown.

"The mood is pretty somber," Hillebrand said. "The three are in our thoughts and prayers."

The helicopter was an American Eurocopter EC 135, one of the most popular helicopters used in America for emergency medical services. Med Flight leased the helicopter from Air Methods Corp., headquartered in Denver.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of the University of Wisconsin's Med Flight and Air Methods' crew members, and extend our heartfelt condolences to the members of their families and those they served with," said Aaron Todd, Air Methods chief executive officer, in a statement Sunday.

According to National Transportation Safety Board records of aircraft accidents, two EC 135s were involved in fatal crashes in the past three years, both in the Washington, D.C. area.

The last fatal crash of an Air Methods helicopter was in December 2006 in Southern California, but that was a Bell helicopter, according to company spokesman Craig Yale in a story Monday in the LaCrosse Tribune.

Bean, who joined UW Hospitals as a Med Flight surgeon in 2002, was the Madison Fire Department's medical director.

"It's just terrible. It's such a loss for us," said Madison Fire Chief Debra Amesqua, who learned of the helicopter's disappearance at about 4 a.m. "He was just such an emotional and energetic powerhouse, and it was just so infectious."

The helicopter departed at about 10:30 p.m. for Madison after dropping off a patient to be admitted to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse. Med Flight officials were not successful in attempts to contact the pilot through radio communications, and the initial search began 30 minutes later.

In a statement, UW Hospital officials said, "the aircraft may have flown into a hill and/or struck some trees."

Mark Hanson, the director of UW's Med Flight program, said the area was wooded.

In the statement, hospital officials said, "Following standard protocol, the second Med Flight helicopter has been taken out of service."

They wouldn't comment on the cause of the crash, although they said no radio communication was received after the helicopter took off.

Craig Yale, vice president of corporate development for Air Methods, said using night vision goggles would be an asset for helicopter pilots, and the company has a commitment to outfit all 350 aircraft it owns with goggles, and make the necessary modifications to the aircraft, over a five-year period.

"We want to get them into all of our aircraft but the logistics of taking aircraft out of service to outfit them with the equipment takes time," he said.

Yale said the company is two years into the five year night vision goggle plan.

Another problem is availability of night vision goggles.

"The availability is real low, because most of the goggles are going to Afghanistan and Iraq," Yale said. "Everybody is trying to get them as quickly as they can."

Yale also said all of Air Methods aircraft follow the most restrictive guidelines set by the FAA, even though when a patient isn't on board, the less stringent rules for general aviation aircraft could be followed.

Air Methods also has its own operations control center near Denver, tracking the corporate aircraft 24/7 whenever they take to the skies.

A large-scale search effort was initiated at 11 p.m. Saturday, but the search was hampered because of weather conditions, precluding an air search. The search was conducted by foot and road vehicle.

The crash site was discovered by firefighters on foot at about 8:40 a.m. four miles east of the La Crosse Airport, near Keil Coulee Road in the town of Medary.

The FAA is investigating the crash. Hanson said the Med Flight program would be grounded pending FAA clearance.

Hanson said Lipperer started his shift at 7 p.m. Saturday and had flown to the La Crosse area on previous trips.

The Med Flight program typically averages three to four flights per day, and the average distance in transporting a patient is 55 miles, according to Hanson.

UW's medical helicopters were operated by CJ Systems Aviation Group of Pittsburgh, Pa., until October of last year, when it was bought out by Air Methods Corp. of Denver, the world's largest air ambulance operator, according to the company's Web site. No one at the company was available for comment Sunday.

In 2005 the UW Med Flight program celebrated its 20th year in service and currently has 22 doctors and 10 nurses assigned to its staff. The downed helicopter is one of two the program uses.

The aircraft involved in Saturday's crash had been used by the Med Flight program since August 2007, and the second that was grounded has been used since October 2007.

At the time of its 20th anniversary, the program had transported more than 20,000 patients, according to published news accounts from the time.

Bean, the Madison Fire Department's medical director since January 2007, leaves a big hole at the Fire Department, spokeswoman Lori Wirth said.

"He was so full of life, it's really, really difficult to wrap your head around the fact that he's gone," she said.

"He did so much. It was unbelievable," she said. "He taught, he was an ER doctor, he worked for us, and he was a Med Flight surgeon."

She described him as a "very involved father" to his two young children, a boy and a girl.

Coyne had been a nurse for over 20 years, while Lipperer, an employee of Air Methods, had 10 years of experience working as a pilot.

Gov. Jim Doyle today issued a statement saying: "Dr. Darren Bean, Mark Coyne and Steve Lipperer dedicated themselves to rescuing people who faced the longest odds, and we owe them tremendous gratitude for their extraordinary service and dedication. I pray for them, their families and all the others who love them."

Meanwhile, Hospital Chief Executive Officer Donna Katen-Bahensky said officials will bring in social workers to help the survivors' families and members of the hospital staff deal with the tragedy.

"I think it goes without saying that UW Health is very much like a family," Katen-Bahensky said. "The staff are very much connected to each other, and this is a tremendous loss to our staff, but also to the families and friends of those who died.

"We're going to take good care of each other."

Tamira Madsen, Steve Elbow and Bill Novak  —  5/12/2008 7:31 pm