The non-profit organization, which also has centres in Squamish, Prince George and Fort St. John, has set up shop on the North Island to provide helicopter-centred, pre-hospital care in remote sites where ambulances either can’t go or take too long to access.
“It was always part of our plan to go to Campbell River — it has a fairly significant need for the type of program that we provide,” said TEAAM founder and president Miles Randell.
Randell said the forest industry in particular needs this kind of service, which is able to reach into the most dense brush and access injured workers, start applying medical treatment and get them to advanced care centres in a fraction of the time other services can.
He cites an example, included in a 2017 report from the B.C. Forest Safety Ombudsman, of a forest worker who broke a leg in a remote part of Haida Gwaii in 2014.
It took 11 hours to get the worker, whose leg had been crushed by a fallen tree, to a hospital. The trip included two boat trips and a vehicle ride on an unserviced resource road. The worker’s leg was ultimately amputated below the knee.
Randell said a properly equipped helicopter could have made the trip in a tenth of the time.
