A nice, new pad
LifeFlight gains new hangar at Ontario airport
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:49 AM PDT
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| Jessica Keller | Argus Observer
Mike Kane, Ironhead Construction, Vale, Tuesday, clears dirt out from an area designated at Ontario Municipal Airport to situate a 90-by-100-foot hangar, half of which will be used to store the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center air ambulance and provide offices for its full-time staff. |
ONTARIO — After going so long without a home of its own, the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center LifeFlight air ambulance situated at the Ontario Municipal Airport will have a hangar of its own — or at least half of one — sometime soon.
Currently, the St. Alphonsus helicopter sits in the open at Ontario’s airport, with its crew stashed in offices inside the facility.
Yesterday, however, crews broke ground on a 90-by-100-foot airplane hangar at the Ontario airport. If everything goes well, the St. Al’s LifeFlight Ontario air ambulance staff, transportation and equipment should have a permanent home and offices by the end of summer, hangar owner Joe Williams, Flying W Aviation, which provides aircraft services based at Ontario airport, said.
“It should go fairly fast, but it kind of depends on how it goes,” Williams said, adding the weather will be key in how fast the hangar is constructed. The concrete needs at least six weeks to set by itself, he said.
Williams said the process to start building a hangar actually began last fall, after St. Alphonsus announced it would be situating an air ambulance and medical services in Ontario.
“I was thinking about building a hangar, and I thought ‘hey, maybe we could work something out,’” he said.
Williams said he contacted St. Alphonsus representatives seeing if they were interested in leasing from him half of an airport hangar he intended to build to situate the hospital’s helicopter and staff. After some talking and working out the fine details, Williams said, St. Alphonsus representatives signed a five-year lease to use half of the hangar for the air ambulance, equipment and offices for its crew, which include a pilot, flight nurse and flight paramedic. Williams will use the other half, himself, for his airplane and equipment.
Williams said the hangar should hopefully be completed by sometime in August.
“It’s been a long process,” he said, adding it took awhile to obtain the necessary permits and work out a contract between himself and St. Alphonsus.
Williams said he was happy to be able to work out an agreement with St. Alphonsus.
“They’re a top-notch organization,” he said. “They’re going to be here awhile. I think it’s good for Ontario, quite frankly. It’s nice to have an air ambulance just sitting there.”
He said, while a St. Alphonsus air ambulance would have to fly from the Boise area before, now it has a 30-minute head start to a place it is needed in this area.
According to the St. Alphonsus news release announcing its intentions of situating an air ambulance in Ontario, whereas before an air ambulance may not be able to travel so far to reach a patient, with an air ambulance and crew situated in Ontario, St. Alphonsus can offer its air ambulance and staff to a greater service area.
Airport Manager Alan Daniels said he was also excited about yesterday’s ground-breaking, where a large portion of dirt was cleared away to create an area for the hangar’s base.
