ARCH Turns 30

Friday, June 12, 2009 - Paul M. Ross, Jr., Vertical Online

Vertical recently caught up with the busy providers at St. Louis, Mo.-based ARCH Air Medical Service as the program celebrates 30 years of service to its Midwestern customers in 2009.

ARCH's first aircraft was a Sikorsky S-55
contracted from St. Louis Helicopter in 1979.
The program was initially known as
MARC: the Medical Air Rescue Corps.
ARCH Air Medical Photo.
A look at the program's history leads back to the days of the first commercial air ambulance programs. As the late afternoon sun faded from a Midwest sky in 1979, the piston-packing Sikorsky S-55 helicopter with “MARC” lettering stenciled on the fuselage landed at a rural hospital and a flight nurse jumped out while the pilot scanned the pad from high above. This first flight of the Medical Air Rescue Corps program, transporting a high-risk pregnancy patient, represented one of thousands of such helicopter air medical transports to come over the following 30 years.

Founded by St. Louis University Medical Center staffers, MARC became present-day ARCH — the Area Rescue Consortium of Hospitals — in 1987, as St. Louis' three trauma centers partnered in a new, progressive air medical plan.

Fast forward to 2009. Longtime pilot Jeff Stackpole jockeys “ARCH 8,” one of the program's signature BK117s, for a landing at the scene of a vehicle accident. Flight nurse Kelly Laughlin and flight paramedic Davey Davis begin field assessment of the trauma patient and package him into the ship for the flight to SLU Medical Center's helipad. Today, ARCH has multiple bases, multiple aircraft and heavy demand. So the program, a subsidiary of Colorado's Air Methods since 2000, continues to build on its long tradition of service, helping a wide variety of patients obtain rapid access to improved levels of care.
 
ARCH 8 returns to ARCH's downtown St. Louis base from a mission,
with the Gateway Arch in the background. Moyercreek.com Photo.

Longtime pilot Dave Fails, ARCH's area aviation manager, weighed in with thoughts about 30 years of service. “Even with our good growth and being part of a corporate structure, we still maintain our focus on doing the small things right and more importantly maintain a focus that safety overcomes all other operational considerations,” stated Fails. “And certainly we do have a lot more competition than when we started. But we have not let the competition dictate the way we operate; we remain consistently focused on effective, safe operations.”

ARCH maintains 11 bases in Illinois and Missouri, including a fixed-wing program.

Pilot Jeff Stackpole eyes the rooftop
landing zone at Barnes Hospital at
the controls of ARCH 8, one of the
program's signature BK117 copters.
Moyercreek.com Photo.
Pilot Jeff Stackpole has nine years with ARCH and sees his impetus for pursuing a career in the rotary wing industry unchanged. “It's the same job today as when I started,” he said. “It's flying — which I enjoy — and it's providing a vital service to the community. I'm privileged to do the job.”

In addition to frequent scene and inter-facility flights, ARCH maintains a commitment to specialty transport services with its BK117 “Kid Copter,” customized for neonatal and pediatric high-risk patients. “The St. Louis area is very much a hub for pediatric transplant medical services with the great facilities here, and it is rewarding to be a part of that service offering,” said specialty team pilot Jeff Romer. “It's a great job, a great mission.” Romer said that as a pilot working for ARCH, he is never pressured to accept flights. “And the BK117 is such an all around good aircraft,” he added. “Very durable; good power, range and ergonomics for effective operations.”

Air medical crew selection criteria and job satisfaction both remain high, according to 20-year nurse Kelly Laughlin. “We have a standard of five years with an advanced ALS crew for the paramedics and ER/ICU years for the nurses, as well as dual licensures in adjacent states,” said Laughlin. “I like the ability to provide quality care in an autonomous setting. That's where you can truly use your critical thinking skills, react on your feet, truly do all the components of critical care amidst the challenge of the environments we work in, it's all very rewarding.”

Flight paramedic Davey Davis, in his seventh year of air medical response, said: “The biggest reward for me is being able to help out people when they really need it, and at the same time being able to advance your skill set. I feel very fortunate to be here with ARCH, it's certainly an opportunity to work at a very high level in the ALS field.”

Service offerings by ARCH go beyond air medical flight operations. Co-located at the downtown St. Louis headquarters is the ARCH Communications Center, handling dispatching and aircraft flight communications for air medical programs in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
 
Flight nurse Julie Statzel and flight paramedic Dan Shurtz move a maternity patient to Barnes Hospital's
OB specialty care unit after a transport from a rural hospital. Moyercreek.com Photo.

ARCH's maintenance facility adds to a diversified business base, providing maintenance services to outside customers in addition to fleet maintenance duties. “Our guys are the BK117 gurus,” said Romer. “They know this aircraft better than anyone in the country and we really appreciate their work.”

Former ARCH flight paramedic and program manager Matt Kasten, now working in a Midwest regional role for Air Methods' CBS division, summed up the commitment to quality in the program's community based model: “ARCH has seen plenty of changes over the years but the constant has been maintaining our high standard of excellence in patient care and operations.”

The same approach likely positions ARCH team members for success in decades to come, building on a strong legacy from the past.

Paul M. Ross, Jr. is a St. Louis-based writer, photographer and firefighter/EMT with 14 years spent in Western U.S. wildland firefighting/helitack operations and urban fire-rescue response ops. Log onto http://www.moyercreek.com/ for additional information.

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