Marketplace Today Blog

Two helicopters will now be able to land at Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah thanks to a new 60-foot-by-60-foot, fully lighted helipad approved by Neenah’s Common Council Wednesday night.

The Theda Clark Medical Center Foundation donated the $100,000 for the new helipad, which will be completed in the next month. Currently, there is space for one helicopter to land at the hospital, the home base for ThedaStar Air Medical. ThedaStar responds directly to accident/trauma scenes and also transports patients between facilities 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

When multi-vehicle crashes occur, two helicopters often respond to transport the injured. With space for only one helicopter to land at Theda Clark, the other helicopter has to wait in the air or land at the airport and transport the patient to the hospital via an ambulance. Both situations mean patients wait longer to receive life-saving care, said ThedaStar Supervisor Gary Stromberg.

“More and more, we are working in tandem with another medical helicopter when responding to a large accident scene and it’s essential to have the ability to both land at the trauma center and get patients the treatment they need,” he said.

“The Theda Clark Foundation has always been a big ThedaStar supporter,” said Jim Prosser, the chair of the Theda Clark Medical Center Foundation grants committee. “The Foundation bought the most recent helicopter and we felt adding the second helipad was something that needed to be done. The helipad will help the hospital stay on the leading edge of providing the best possible trauma care.”

As a regional trauma center, having space for two helicopters to land is necessary, said Scott Harbick, M.D., co-medical director for ThedaStar.

“With the rapidly expanding population in the Fox Valley and Northeastern Wisconsin, a second helipad at Theda Clark allows access for both ThedaStar and other air medical transport agencies to concomitantly deliver critically ill or injured patients to the life-saving care they need,” he said.

In addition to the new helipad, GPS approaches were installed at Theda Clark and Appleton Medical Center to improve landing and take-off safety. The approaches are similar to the ones used by aircraft at an airport providing ThedaStar with a specific flying pattern, Stromberg said.

“With the GPS approaches, ThedaStar will be able to fly in more types of weather,” he said. “Right now, if it’s cloudy here, but clear in Waupaca, we couldn’t fly. The GPS approaches allow us to still fly and ThedaStar will be able to reach more patients. It’s also a definite safety enhancement.”

The GPS approaches cost $25,000 each. Theda Clark and Appleton Medical Center are the only two hospitals in Northeast Wisconsin to have the GPS approaches.

Last month, ThedaCare announced it was leasing a new $6 million twin-engine Eurocopter E-135 from PHI Inc., a Lafayette, La., company that supplies the pilots and mechanics who work on ThedaStar. The aircraft will replace the current ThedaStar helicopter, which was purchased nearly 10 years ago.