Contact Mary Margaret Colliver
or
Vikki Franklin
~
"We’re pleased to again be able to
offer this service to Eastern and Southeastern Kentucky. We are recommitting to our
original mission of increased availability."
- Colleen Swartz, director of trauma and
emergency transport, UK Hospital
See related story in the July 3, 1999, issue
of the Lexington
Herald-Leader.
~
|
LEXINGTON, KY (July 5, 1999) — The
University of Kentucky Hospital’s Air Medical Service will resume its Jackson,
Ky.-based service at 11 a.m. Monday, July 5. The Sikorsky S-76, which is identical to the
Lexington-based helicopter, replaces the UK helicopter involved in a fatal accident in
Jackson on June 14. The new Jackson-based helicopter from the Petroleum Helicopters,
Inc. aircraft fleet has not yet been customized with the UK logo and colors. UK has leased
helicopters from PHI since the UK Air Medical Service was established in 1987.
The helicopter will be called UK 3. UK 2, the designation of the helicopter that
crashed, officially has been retired, along with the numbers of the crew members killed in
the crash: pilots Ernest L. Jones Jr., 49, of Oakwood Village, Ohio, and Don Greene, 46,
of Somerset; flight nurse Sheila Zellers, 43, of Elizabethtown; and paramedic Brian
Harden, 31, of Richmond.
As with the original service which began in October 1998, the helicopter will be based
at the Julian Carroll Airport at Jackson for 12 hours seven days a week, transporting
critically ill and injured patients to UK Hospital.
"We’re pleased to again be able to offer this service to Eastern and
Southeastern Kentucky," said Colleen Swartz, director of trauma and emergency
transport, UK Hospital. "We are recommitting to our original mission of increased
availability." |
