10-09-00 Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 9, 2000 physician at Memorial Hospital. After consultation, a call will go to the pilot of the helicopter service. That pilot does not know the situation of the patient. He makes a decision to fly strictly upon the conditions that exist thinking first of the safety of his staff. Once the decision is made, within five (5) to seven (7) minutes that flight is off the ground and is responding. Once a patient has been picked up they will be flown back to Memorial. The helipad itself will be located at the northwest corner of the Lafayette parking garage. This project requires that they put an addition on the parking garage and that they build the helistop on top of that garage. The helicopter will land, the patient will be taken by stretcher immediately to the elevator bank and directly down into the emergency trauma center. Every moment is critical and they believe this is the absolute best way for patients to be taken into emergency services. Not only is it the best alternative but it is the only viable alternative. He stated that the hospital is aware that noise is an issue. He noted that they have committed to a Fly Neighborly Program which requires a height of flight during missions of an excess of one thousand (1,000) feet. They will be flying over one thousand (1,000) feet and they will be flying within certain mandated speeds and on flight patterns that try to avoid the most heavily populated areas of the community. Mr. Neufelder showed the primary flight path on the diagram which indicated that it is directly down Lafayette. The secondary flight paths will be used only when necessary. Under no circumstances would they fly over the elementary school. They will be flying at a level of seventy -five (75) decibels which is less than a City bus and less than a lawnmower and far less than the alternative which is an ambulance with a siren which is one hundred five (105) decibels. Mr. Bob Snyder, Architect, BSA Design in Indianapolis, 9365 Counselors Road, Indianapolis, Indiana, advised that over the last two (2) years they have evaluated a number of different sites after having first established criteria. That criteria include safety for the community, hospital and patients; access to the patients and the helicopter; the time to transfer the patients from the helicopter to the trauma center; cost and budget; the proximity and location of the site to the trauma center; elevator access and the size of the elevators; the FAA primary and secondary flight paths and the structural and seismic loading for the different buildings that have been evaluated. The initial two (2) sites on the ground which were north of the Bartlett Street garage and the site at the corner of Lafayette and Bartlett Street were eliminated because of the logistics of transferring the patients from that location after the helicopter landed to an ambulance would have to circulate around to the emergency room. The third site which was evaluated was on top of the Bartlett Street garage which is designed from a structural standpoint to accommodate one future floor. The concern with this location was the proximity and route that the patient would have to travel through the entire hospital circulating back to the emergency room. The time involved was not acceptable and the patient would have to travel through public corridors for the majority of that route. A fourth site was on top of the 73 building, which is the patient tower, was eliminated because of a significant number of communication towers and mechanical units all of which would have to be relocated or removed. This building was not designed to accommodate any future vertical expansion. The logistics of the elevators in the 73 building was also an issue because while they are appropriately sized to accommodate the transfer of patients, they are not appropriately sized to accommodate a trauma patient. This site was eliminated for these reasons. The next site identified was the Centennial Building and while that was the recommendation on the initial report it was done at a point in time when after evaluating all the sites this was the first choice. At that time the hospital gave a directive to their structural engineers to pull the set of construction documents for this building, analyze and evaluate it and see if it could in fact accommodate the heliport on the roof or anywhere in the upper portion of this building. After it was evaluated, it was determined that the building was not designed for a future vertical expansion. The building can be modified but the logistics of making that happen were insurmountable. There are a number of physicians in this building and the lower level of this building is occupied by outpatient surgery. All these services and the physicians would be disrupted. The physicians have a contract lease with the hospital and to modify the building, it would have to be closed for a minimum of six (6) to nine (9) months to excavate down through the building to the bottom of the footings and underpin and rework the footings to accommodate the future load and reinforce and stabilize four primary columns all the way up through the building. The physical costs of this site just for modifications to the building would be in excess of ten million dollars ($10,000,000.00) which is not an appropriate location to be evaluated. Mr. Snyder noted that at that time based on further studies working with Mr. Ambers they had selected the center site for the Lafayette Street parking garage because of its immediate proximity