Edward Langerveld wants his name, or rather the name of his company, to be the first thing local emergency doctors think of when it's time to send a critically injured patient by aircraft.
The first of its kind in Florence, Langerveld’s Emergency Airlift air ambulance business employs experienced, certificated pilots, nurses and paramedics. His aircraft are immaculate, including the fully equipped twin-engine jet plane used day and night for critical care transports, and his planes can zip over the coast, reaching area cities than inland air transport teams.
They even offer a bargain $25 yearly household membership for area residents, potentially saving folks thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical transport costs.
According to Langerveld, however, it has been a challenge getting Emergency Airlift off the ground.
“There was a point, a few months into this, when I was ready to shut it all down,” says Langerveld, who now, almost a year later, is standing a little more comfortably in his airy 8,000 square foot hangar at the North Bend airport, one of two hangars he had built to house his aircraft.
Earlier that morning, Langerveld, who says he has flown nearly every day for the past 25 years, warmed up the engines of his Cessna 421 in preparation for our 15 minute flight to North Bend Airport. I asked if he had any horror stories, like engines failing or bad weather. He smiled behind his wire rimmed sunglasses.
“Stuff happens, but anyone with a list of stories is not someone you want to ride in a plane with.”
I compare it to driving a car. Anybody that has had a lot of wrecks or near-death experiences can’t be good at driving, right?
“I have been doing this for so long, you just have to know how to work through the unexpected. Especially with this job, we are carrying critically injured patients, in all conditions. You have to respect all aspects of flying.”
Hospitals generally use air transfer services for patients who need a level of care they are unable to give in their facility. At Peace Harbor Hospital in Florence, dozens of patients a month are sent to larger hospitals in Portland and Eugene. During the critical time prior to the transfer, a medical staff member notifies an emergency dispatcher, requesting aircraft service.
Long-standing relationships between hospitals and air transfer companies elsewhere, however, made it hard for Emergency Airlift, a brand new company, to gain support. For months they struggled to get hospital attention.
“It’s troubling that hospital politics get in the way,” says Langerveld. “We’re closer than any other air ambulance for the coast, yet doctors choose to call so-and-so in Portland because they have for years. I don’t understand it.”
A former Marine, Langerveld was poised for retirement at age 42, after successfully managing one of the largest private jet charter companies in the United States for 15 years.
“You name it, I flew them,” Langerveld recalls, listing actors like Tom Hanks and Danny Devito. After years of doting on celebrities, Langerveld grew tired of the Hollywood scene and sold the company in 2000. He decided to move to Florence for a break.
“My plan was to relax,” but soon the businessman was churning with ideas. “I saw a real need here for a local emergency transport system.”
Langerveld developed Emergency Airlift only after doorbelling area hospitals to determine whether they could use his service.
“They were all very excited,” he says, “but I don’t think they thought I was serious. Now they look at the fact that I haven’t gone away and they see I meant what I said.”
Denise Langerveld, who co-manages the company with her husband, says several area hospitals are now solely using their company for air ambulance transfers. They are averaging 15 transfers a month, and last month they had a record 23. Some hospitals, however, have been slow to accept them as a viable business.
“Bay Area (Hospital in Coos Bay), Coquille, Bandon, and Roseburg use us first,” Denise says, “but Lower Umpqua Hospital rarely uses us.”
The Langervelds say Peace Harbor Hospital in Florence only recently decided to use Emergency Airlift as their primary service.
Peace Harbor director Jim Barnhart says the emergency department was hesitant at first to switch their main air ambulance to Emergency Airlift, simply because of credibility.
“You not only want to be assured that the flight equipment and the pilots are certified, fully competent and state of the art,” Barnhart said, “but we also want to know that the emergency staff are certified, trained, experienced and have the right credentials.”
Until now, the hospital had been using services based in Bend and Portland.
“Emergency Airlift has convinced us to the point where we will call them first,” Barnhart said, “Our emergency department medical director has spent a fair amount of time reviewing the credentials of the medical personnel. We feel they are good to go and we’ll give them a call.”
Langerveld contracts licensed nurses and paramedics trained for critical care air transport from Bay Cities Ambulance, a private emergency medical team based in Coos Bay.
Bay Cities paramedic supervisor Jason Hoffman said the level of training required for air ambulance work is extensive because every second counts for patients requiring that level of care.
“About 80 percent of our staff is trained for airlift transfers,” said Hoffman, who is also a training officer for the ambulance company.
Emergency airlift uses a Med-Pac Model 400 Air Ambulance Life Support System aboard their air transfer craft that Hoffman described as an in-flight ER.
“You have everything you’d have in an emergency room. It’s fully equipped,” he said.
For most air transfer companies, having state-of-the-art technology and professional, highly-trained staff comes at a high cost to health care consumers. Langerveld admits that although a bill for $6,700 sounds steep, which is the most they charge for a transfer, he says it’s less than half what other companies charge.
With the primary air ambulance based at the North Bend hangar and a backup craft in Florence, Langerveld assures residents that help is closer than you think. Not to mention it often takes hours for Portland based planes to reach the coast, and Emergency Airlift can get to Florence from North Bend in less than 15 minutes.
“We can maneuver below the weather most of the time, because we don’t have to cross the mountain range coming from inland,” says Langerveld, who is one of two pilots at Emergency Airlift. They are currently interviewing for a third pilot and hope to have that position filled soon.
“Just recently Florence had a victim they had to get out immediately, but they were all fogged in,” Denise Langerveld recalls. “We were able to get in when others couldn’t.”
Today, however, there is no fog, and the clear morning sky opens up in all directions as we get ready to fly back to Florence.
“We are a certified, committed company. We aren’t some fly-by-night operation,” Edward Langerveld says as he preps the engines to take off again, then he notices he made a joke. “Well, we do fly at night, but not by the seat of our pants, that’s for sure.”
