Jennings: Northwest Medstar provides relief for skiers

Flying in a helicopter is one of those things on my bucket list. I hope to check it off after an unforgettable weekend of heliskiing. Given the deep pockets required for aircraft-assisted adventure, compared to the shallow depth of my bank account, the odds of that happening anytime soon are slim.

Given the frequency I ski and some of the choices I make while I’m skiing, the odds could be more favorable that my helicopter ride comes courtesy of Northwest Medstar. Should that happen, my pockets would need to far exceed heliski depth for me to avoid an acute financial catastrophe.

Northwest MedStar transported approximately two dozen patients throughout the region for accidents related to skiing or snowmobiling in the 2013-2014 winter season. According to Eveline Bisson, director of the service, the ballpark cost of emergency air transport from one of our local ski areas can range from $12,000-15,000.

The farther you have to fly, the bigger the bill.

Everyone knows that skiing and riding are expensive enough already. That’s why buying a Northwest MedStar membership for $59 doesn’t need a sly sales pitch. Sign up and you become one of about 150,000 people, at last count, who are watching each others’ backs.

“Anybody who does any type of risky recreation, and skiing would be one of them, should have a membership,” Bisson said. “If you have an accident, you get flown and you don’t have to worry about getting an air medical bill.”

This isn’t just a good deal. It’s a steal. A Northwest MedStar membership runs $59 a year for an entire family. It doesn’t matter how many are in your family or how many times they need to be flown. If you’re responsible for them on your tax return, they’re covered.

Lenny Wood, 50, lives out near Wild Rose Prairie and belongs to a group of several families that routinely gets together for weekends of dirt biking and snowmobiling. Hearing from one of his riding partners about a bike crash that led to a $25,000 air evacuation prompted Wood to get his family of four covered.

“One of the members of our group had a very expensive lesson he learned for all of us,” Wood said. “We all went and bought the insurance. I did knowing in my heart of hearts I would never get the money back. Except when it happened to me.”

While dirt biking with his son at the Seven Mile ORV park about a year ago, Wood crashed and fractured several ribs.

“When you have broken ribs, you want to get to a hospital quick,” he said. “You can’t draw a full breath. Just little tiny gasps. I knew that my consciousness would eventually slip away and that panicked me.”

Although the pain probably made him feel like he was going to die, Wood’s injury may not have been life-threatening. It’s possible he could have waited about 45 minutes for ground transport. But as a Northwest MedStar member, money was no object. A helicopter arrived minutes after his wife made the call. A shot of morphine allowed him to breathe again and he could rest easy on the flight, knowing he wouldn’t take a $16,000 hit.

It’s not corporate greed that drives the exorbitant fee for air evacuation. Bisson called it “the cost of readiness.”

“Any on-demand EMS service is like that,” she said. “You can’t anticipate the volume. Your team has to always be ready to fly.”

Northwest MedStar keeps highly trained, deeply experienced pilots, nurses and respiratory therapists on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These flight teams are staged at six bases, ranging from Brewster, Washington, to Missoula. The local Northwest MedStar team is parked at Felts Field. Their aircraft cost $700 an hour to operate, since the machines burn 120 gallons of jet fuel an hour.

As you can imagine, the expenses add up. Nonmembers absorb the true cost of readiness. Dues from all Northwest MedStar members cover that cost for the small percentage that actually has to be flown.

“I was a flight nurse for many years before I became the director,” Bisson said. “As a skier, it’s comforting to know there’s a good service to come and get me if anything happens.”