AIR EVAC EMS INC. EXPANDS SERVICE

Air Evac is expanding its air ambulance service.

Air Evac EMS Inc., headquartered in West Plains, Mo., has added a fourth helicopter to its regional services. The new Belle 206 chopper and its EMS flight crew will be stationed at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The commitment is a big one for the company, -- about $3,000 a day and more than $750,000 for the new helicopter.

The helicopter and its crew will be available for calls 12 hours a day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, said Colin Collins, president of Air Evac EMS Inc.

Collins announced Friday that the company, which already provides helicopters based at hospitals in Cape Girardeau -- St. Francis Medical Center -- West Plains and Jonesboro, Ark., purchased the new air ambulance helicopter to cover calls that come in when the company's other helicopters are busy.

The new helicopter went into operation Friday.

Most of the time, the current helicopters can cover all calls, said Collins. "On the weekend, however, and especially during the summer, calls for Air Evac rescue flights are greater."

Sixty-five percent of the trauma calls are on weekends.

During the other four days of the week, the new helicopter and an Air Evac EMS crew -- critical care nurse, flight paramedic and pilot -- will travel to areas throughout the region, Southern Missouri, Southeastern Illinois, West Kentucky and Northwest Arkansas, during the day, and return to Cape Girardeau at night.

"We may spend some time one day at Park Hills, Mo., another day at Poplar Bluff, Mo., Blytheville, Ark. or Paducah, Ky.,' said Collins. "The EMS crew will be ready to go when needed."

All four Air Evac EMS Inc. helicopters responded to calls from Jonesboro, Ark. March 23, when a shooting outside an elementary school left five dead and 11 wounded.

Air Evac's maintenance facility is located at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, where the company also keeps an airplane for hospital-to-hospital flights.

Air Evac EMS Inc., doing business as Air Evac Aviation has been fixed base operator at the local airport since September of 1994.

"We're looking at additional expansion eastward, with the Cape Girardeau Airport as our regional hub," Collins said.

Air Evac EMS Inc. is a rural air ambulance service founded in 1985 by a group of South Central Missouri citizens.

The service, which started at West Plains, added bases in Cape Girardeau in the late 1980s, and at Jonesboro, Ark. earlier this year.

The company has also established bases at hospitals in Quincy and Rock Island, Ill. to cover West Central Illinois, Southeast Iowa and Northeast Missouri.

Air Evac has made more than 12,000 flights and flown more than a million miles since it was established. Currently, the company averages about 185 flights a month, said Connie Damron, lead flight nurse, Air Evac-St. Francis Medical Center. Her husband, Jim Damron, is lead pilot for Air Evac-St. Francis.

More than 70 percent of emergency calls are for some kind of trauma, said Collins.