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Show Valley View Medical Center personnel and Emergency Medical Technicians transfer a "patient" from the ambulance am-bulance to the new air ambulance at the Cedar City Municipal Airport. Those involved hope the new service will improve health care in the area by making transfers to Salt Lake City hospitals much faster. Valley View Medical Center gets air ambulance system transports patients to and from the Valley View Medical Center. Their response time or the time it takes from the hospital to become airbound is 15-30 minutes, according to Dr. Kuypers who is the only lull-time emergency room doctor south of Provo. "We're excited about this new service, ser-vice, and want to share it with the public. We are offering a contest to name our flight and design a logo," said Dr. Kuypers. The deadline for entering is Nov. 12 and $25 is offered for the winners. Interested persons should send .. entries to Valley View Medical Center in care of Bonnie Cook. CEDAR CITY - Getting to a larger hospital in a hurry has been a probem for Cedar City residents in the past but not anymore. An air ambulance service owned and operated by the Valley View Medical Center and contracted to Color Canyon Aviation was recently granted its license to operate. The state-operated Emergency Medical Systems Council easily approved the action, effective Wednesday, Oct. 14. The life-flight idea was started some time ago, according to Bonnie Cook, assistant administrator of patient care and director of nurses. When Dr. Marcus Kuypers joined the staff as the director of the emergency room, things began to happen. "It was great having someone so enthusiastic as Dr. Kuypers," said Cook. Consequently, four months later, the air ambulance service became a reality. "The air ambulance service was an attempt to upgrade services in the Cedar City area and a service that was needed," said Dr. Kuypers and added, "Flights coming from Salt Lake to pick up patients were taking as long as six hours." Color Canyon Aviation, owned and managed by Clyde Harding has three airplanes available on a 24-hour basis. One larger plane, a twin engine 401 can easily accomodate two patients and any medical personnel necessary, up to six persons. It contains all life-saving equipment required for any procedure necessary, and can reach Salt Lake City in one hour and ten minutes. Two smaller 210 airplanes are ready to transport any patient and contain the required equipment. Thus far up to ten patients have been transported to Salt Lake or other hospitals. Valley View Medical Center currently has nine nurses and 10 to 12 Emergency Medical Technicians who have the required training to transport patients. The Iron County Ambulance Service under the direction of H. Craig Gorton |