Should Downtown Hospital Get a Helipad?

Medical helicopters can make all the difference when seconds count and lives are on the line, but when something goes wrong during flight, the results can be disastrous.

The helipad atop Children's Memorial Hospital's Lincoln Park campus is used about 73 times a year, hospital officials said, and it's something the hospital would like to take with it when it opens its new Streeterville location in three years.

But some are questioning whether having the helipad in the high-rise community is a good idea.

"In 2008 alone, four helicopters crashed within a mile of the heliport. Five of the providers involved fly to Children's Memorial hospital. There's a lot of areas for concern," said Patty Frost, co-chair of SOAR, the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents.

SOAR points to a series of medevac chopper crashes, like the incident last October in Aurora when an Air Angels chopper struck a radio tower, killing everyone on board.

In the year prior to this crash, 35 people died in nine such incidents nationwide.

In trying to ease fears, the hospital on Friday announced a series of protocols for helicopters operating at the downtown heliport, include requiring all helicopters to have two engines, prohibiting flights in winds of 25 knots or higher and installing special equipment to measure the weather around the new building.

"There are times when weather conditions are not favorable for flying. When this occurs, we don't fly," said Chief Executive Nurse Michelle Stephenson.

The hospital insists it is doing everything it can to ensure the safety of the heliport it wants to build in Streeterville.

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) has proposed the area just south of Navy Pier, near the Chicago Harbor Lock, as an alternative location.

Public hearings on the new heliport are scheduled to begin Wednesday, July 22 at the Lurie Research Center on Superior Street.

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