Medical helicopters were turned away at Marysville shootings

Twenty-five minutes after Friday’s shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, two air ambulances hovered near the campus, prepared to transport the critically wounded to the region’s highest-rated trauma hospital.

After the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting, an empty Airlift NW helicopter leaves Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett at 12:30 p.m. But at 1:35 p.m. the crew was called back to transport one of the victims to Harborview.

Firefighters, medics and hospital staff move one of the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting victims from an ambulance into Everett’s Providence Regional Medical Center on Friday.

But Snohomish County emergency medical officials canceled the Airlift Northwest choppers before they could carry patients to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

Instead, four wounded students were taken by ground ambulance to Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett — geographically closer than Harborview, but less equipped to handle critical trauma cases, particularly involving juvenile or pediatric victims.

One of the Times comments:

1EMSguy 5 minutes ago As a person who knows every EMS responder at that scene and had a daughter that was in the room, I can provide an unique perspective. I am not here to argue or point fingers. The short answer here is the EMS team at the scene performed to a very high standard. The decision to ground transport to PGEMC was exactly as they were trained. Airlift NW takes exceedingly long to transfer care and load patients into their helicopter. By the 25 minute mark that they were flying overhead all viable patients had already been transported off of the scene. The amount of time effort that is required to establish a landing zone requires time and staffing that were at a premium. Harborview is an outstanding Hospital with terrific staff. Their training and leadership are invaluable to this community. The severity and type of injuries these patients received were very appropriate for the Level 2 trauma center. Transfer of care by Airlift NW would have taken too long. The use of Airlift NW in Snohomish County has been steadily declining over the last 10 years, namely because it is faster and more efficient to ground transport to Harborview than wait for the length of time it tales Airlift NW to land, shut down, transfer care. special packaging by the nurses, then loading, and start up. It is true that once they in the air, it is a short ride, but the entire process is simply too long. The hospital and staff at Providence ER performed at a very high level and provided excellent care. A great number of the doctors and staff at Providence have worked at, or continue to work at Harborview. The Monday morning quarterbacking being displayed by this article is disheartening and disappointing. While I am glad that Harborview was prepared to take patients, I am surprised that they chose to interject where they are not needed. The men and women that responded to this tragic scene and provided care to the wounded were able to put aside their feelings make a difference in the lives of the community that they care about. I am dismayed by the comments from people how have limited knowledge and context of this scene. I understand the reporters desire to pump up a story, that is her job, as distasteful as it may be. But medical professionals need to remain just that, professionals.

the ravennaboy 12 hours ago
Two key points emerged from this article that should lead us all to question whether "the children's lives" were the primary consideration:
1. Dr. Eric Cooper, an employee doctor at Providence, is also the head of Snohomish EMS who made the decision to reject the air ambulances and send the kids to Providence, which was close, but not a LEVEL 1 Facility. He had a self-interest in getting the victims to "his hospital", and he has refused to comment on why he rejected the air ambulances.
2. The Air Ambulance service was managed by UW Medicine, who also manages Harborview, so they had a vested interest in transporting kids to Harborview. They had a vested interest in getting the victims to Harborview.
It is clear that the decision were made based on something other than getting the best possible care for the victims, since Harborview was the superior hospital, and the helicopters were the best chance to move the victims to ANY HOSPITAL.
Too bad that this will most likely be covered up, and no one will be accountable for poor decision making that may have led to death.

Both of your posts make sense.

The difference between a level 1 and 2 trauma hospital is primarily that the level 1 has teaching ability.

For us, if we call air ambulance, it will take 10 minutes for a helicopter to arrive, IF they tell us the truth about it. Sometimes they do. They will also transport to their base hospital almost exclusively regardless of where the best destination is for patient care.

Then there is issues of weather, setting up LZ, transferring patient care, flight time, unload time on the other end, getting patient downstairs to the ED, and another patient hand-off.

Every time an patient is handed-off you risk losing information.

I lost a good friend due to air evac not passing on obvious information THEY WERE TOLD that NO DOUBT would have saved his life.

We can “load and go” and be at the level 1 hospital in 12-15 minutes on the ground.

We go months and perhaps years without flying anyone.

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