The partnership between Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) and AirLife continues to soar.

It was four years ago today, that AirLife's sonic green helicopter took to the skies of Cheyenne.

"We average about 30 to 35 calls a month," said AirLife Flight Nurse Casey Zeigler. "About 70 percent of our calls are from a smaller rural hospital to a bigger hospital and 30 percent are scene calls."

The Cheyenne-based crew covers the southern half of Wyoming, Northern Colorado and parts of the Nebraska Panhandle.

"We try to stay within a 150 mile radius of Cheyenne," said Zeigler. "Most of our calls come from Laramie County and Albany County."

CRMC began offering the air ambulance service as a way to reduce response times for rural patients and improve the ability to get patients to appropriate caregivers.

"Our ground ambulance partnership with AMR is wonderful, but it's not feasible for them to go to a farmer's field that's 50 miles away and get them here quickly," said Bryce Bishop, Trauma Program Manager at CRMC. "That's why we rely on AirLife so heavily."

AirLife's helicopter is also equipped with special tools, which allow the two nurses or medic and nurse on board to do a lot of the same procedures as ER doctors.

"Really everything that an emergency room has we have in the back of this helicopter, minus x-ray and ultrasound," said Zeigler.

"So many of our injuries are time sensitive," said Bishop. "AirLife is so important to us because they have not only the special tools, but also the special training that goes with that."

"We work really, really well with CRMC to get those heart attack patients, those stroke patients, those trauma patients there and get them to the physician that really needs to be taking care of them," said Zeigler. "It's one of the most rewarding jobs I have ever done in my life."

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