It wasn't a bird. It wasn't a plane.
It was the STARS air ambulance, making its first landing in Humboldt.
The air ambulance began to service Saskatchewan earlier this year, and on Thursday night, they made their first flight out to Humboldt to transport a patient in need of critical care to Saskatoon.
According to Jan Stevens, the manager of nursing at the Humboldt District Hospital, the helicopter landed in Humboldt at approximately 6:30 p.m and left shortly after 7 p.m. with a patient headed for Royal University Hospital (RUH) in Saskatoon.
It landed on the temporary landing spot on the northwest corner of the hospital property, in what is now an empty grassed area.
The area was chosen as a landing area by STARS just a few weeks ago.
Though unable to provide many details about the patient in question, due to privacy constraints, Stevens was able to talk about the process which results in STARS helicopters being used to transport patients from Humboldt to Saskatoon.
It begins with a physician in Humboldt deciding that a patient needs to be moved to a hospital in Saskatoon, and beginning the patient placement process based out of RUH.
From there, it is determined what kind of transportation the patient needs - a STARS air ambulance helicopter, a fixed-wing plane or ground transportation.
"A STARS physician is in on the process," Stevens explained.
Once it's decided that the air ambulance is the best way to go, it takes about eight minutes to get the helicopter in the air.
The flight time to Humboldt is about 30 minutes.
The whole process takes about 40 minutes in total, Stevens noted, once it's decided to make the flight.
While the helicopter is taking off in Saskatoon, the Humboldt Fire Department is alerted and asked to block traffic around the landing area.
"They come out to the property and block traffic from either side," Stevens said of the firefighters, "so there's no traffic on the road."
The firefighters also set up flares to help the pilots land at night.
"We got very good support from the fire department," Stevens said of last Thursday evening.
They arrived within minutes of the call, and were ready with flares going when the helicopters arrived.
Besides the two pilots on the helicopter, on the flight to Humboldt last week, there were two paramedics, Stevens reported
There is also a STARS physician who can be on a flight, depending on what is happening. But that was not the case for the trip last week.
After the patient was loaded into the helicopter, it flew back to Saskatoon, landing at the temporary landing area by Wilson's Greenhouse, and then transported to hospital by ground ambulance.
"With this service, it's very dependent on ground ambulance, and it will always be that way," Stevens noted.
But when a critical patient needs transportation to a city hospital, often that means a physician travelling with them in a ground ambulance.
When they are taken by air, that enables the physician to stay in the community he or she serves, and it doesn't tie up an ambulance on the ground.
Patients who are transported by air ambulance are either in critical condition or have the potential to become critical in the near or immediate future, Stevens explained. Travelling by helicopter gets them to an intensive care centre faster, in addition to keeping the doctor and ambulance from their home community at home.
Everything to do with STARS landing in Humboldt last week went well, Stevens reported.
They will be reviewing things in their entirety, she indicated, but nothing went wrong.
"The fire department was very, very good in attending.... (they had) a very quick response."
The temporary landing spot also worked out.
"They try to fly over the least residential area," Stevens explained.
Where the permanent STARS landing location will be has yet to be determined; it may be where the temporary location is, it was noted.
"Right now, where it is is very good," Stevens said, but it has not been designated a permanent spot.
Right now, STARS is only providing 12 hours of service per day - from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Stevens said. But the goal is to have them up to 24-hour service by February of 2013.
"It's certainly a positive addition to our health care service," Stevens said.
