To the editor:
I enjoyed Steve Cartwright’s article “Helicopters serve islanders in distress” in the Dec. 10, 2005 issue of Working Waterfront. Life Flight does a wonderful job moving critically ill or injured persons to health care facilities, performing two dozen missions in a year’s time, as Mr. Cartwright notes. However, I wish that Mr. Cartwright might have mentioned the company I work for — Penobscot Island Air — in his closing paragraphs, which listed other options for transporting ill or injured island residents. Penobscot Island Air, based in Owls Head, has done 61 medical evacuations from North Haven and Vinalhaven alone so far in 2005. We do these medevacs at all hours of the day and night, serving both sit-up and stretchered patients, at a cost that is approximately one-eighth the cost of the Life Flight helicopter trips. I certainly don’t mean to steal any thunder from Life Flight: they are a crucial resource, ranging far and wide across Maine, with the helicopter’s ability to reach otherwise inaccessible locales. But I thought we might have been mentioned in that last paragraph about other island options. With respect to the Penobscot Bay Islands, Penobscot Island Air is far and away the number one responder for medical evacuations.
Jim Nichols
Warren