REMINDER: Helicopter drills at 2 West Seattle playfields this week

| Helicopter | West Seattle news

In case you missed our report Thursday night – here’s a reminder that Seattle Fire plans drills each of the next four afternoons to test landing a medical-airlift helicopter at local playfields to practice patient transfers that might occasionally be needed because of “extreme circumstances” during peak travel times. SFD is NOT inviting spectators but has been circulating notices so people nearby aren’t startled. The times are 2-3 pm each day at these locations:

June 8: Alki Playfield – 5817 SW Lander St.
June 9: Walt Hundley Playfield – 6920 34th Ave. SW
June 10: Alki Playfield – 5817 SW Lander St.
June 11: Walt Hundley Playfield – 6920 34th Ave. SW

SFD also has the details here. You can read more about the airlift service here.

Patrick June 7, 2020 (12:56 pm)

So who is going to foot the bill for those in medical distress that now must be airlifted due to SDOT mismanagement of critical infrastructure?

ltfd June 7, 2020 (1:42 pm)

Do you mean design failures of the original (contractor) engineering?Airlift NW will bill the insurance – IF an airlift is requested – depending on incident location, time-of-day, paramedic evaluation, etc. Significant burns and/or major trauma, with significant traffic delays, would be likely scenarios leading to an airlift request.
Jon Wright June 7, 2020 (2:25 pm)

Who do you think? We all are. When we, as a society, kvetch about having to pay to much tax and pass anti-tax measures like I-976 that don’t provide enough funds to maintain stuff, what do you think is going to happen? SDOT didn’t “mismanage critical infrastructure,” WE didn’t give them the resources to make that possible. SDOT and the rest of government do exactly what we ask of them.
- Bradley June 7, 2020 (4:45 pm)
  
  SDOT has MORE than enough taxpayer funding to have properly maintained the high-rise bridge. It failed because it’s a poor design and was never intended for the traffic volume it has endured in the past 25+ years. No one should be thinking about the cost of trauma airlift when they or a loved one is being flown to a hospital, anyway.
  - Jon Wright June 7, 2020 (11:09 pm)
    
    Your assertion that SDOT has more than enough money is based on what exactly?

pilsner June 7, 2020 (1:29 pm)

The persons health insurrance.

DeadEnder June 8, 2020 (9:22 am)

Here is to hoping that we do not fall into analysis paralysis, and make a concrete decision to a long term solution. I’d propose going around too much time and expense of mitigation and begin tunnel planning to include light rail, commuter traffic, AND the hundreds of trucks per day from Pier 5. I think it would also benefit us to allow access, to and from, North and South bound traffic quite unlike the West Seattle-Downtown model we see currently. Making it an integrated part of the traffic patterns allows for far too much flexibility to pretend otherwise.

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