In a major metropolis like Houston emergency healthcare is minutes away. If you live in a rural area, you might not make it.
In March of this year the US Coast Guard medevacked a 48-year old crewmember working on a tanker vessel in the Gulf and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew was able to make the rescue.
For rural America, that kind of lifeline is getting harder to come by as the nation’s largest air-ambulance service says they are reducing capacity due to a pilot shortage, inflationary pressure on prices, and Medicare’s failure to reimburse expenses.
KTRH aviation expert Jay Ratliff says the pilot shortage is putting the summer travel season in critical condition, so you can imagine how a shortage of helicopter pilots threatens the lives of rural Americans who are in the Golden Hour of an emergency.
Kansas resident Shaun Ellidge tells Fox News when his skull was crushed in an industrial accident helicopter transport was the difference between life and death.
“Where I was airlifted it only took about 50 minutes to an hour to get to Witchita to have that surgery,” he says.
In March of last year, the Chartis Center for Rural Health reported that 453 rural hospitals in the US were in danger of closing. Nothing has improved.
According to US News and World Report, the ten states that have had the most rural closures since 2005 account for 60% of all rural hospital closures. Texas is in the top ten.
photo: Getty Images