Ground Transport Vehicles

While LifeFlight’s name incorporates “flight,” services also include quick response vehicles that allow the LifeFlight teams to support EMS crews close to a helicopter base at a scene or intercept.

While LifeFlight does not own or operate ground ambulances, we provide ground transport for patients in partnership with EMS agencies when a patient needs critical care and one of the following criteria is met:

• Weather precludes safe flight operation
• When additional transport resources are needed
• When the aircraft are busy with other patients
• The safest clinical option is to move the patient by ground

LifeFlight transports around 600 patients per year by ground, including a partnership with the Rosen Neonatal Care Unit Teams at Northern Light EMMC.

The LifeFlight teams work seamlessly across all vehicle types.

Each LifeFlight vehicle is configured to support critical patients including:

• Advanced ventilators
• Invasive cardiac and neuro-monitoring
• Multiple infusion pumps
• Laboratory
• Ultrasound
• An ICU pharmacy
• Blood and plasma product
• Advanced resuscitation and trauma care

The vehicles can be reconfigured with specialized newborn transport isolettes, intra-aortic and ventricular assist devices, tandem hearts, and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) for patients needing cardiopulmonary bypass.