The University of Michigan Health System helicopters flew past the AnnArbor.com offices Tuesday morning.
Ben Freed | AnnArbor.com
The purpose of the exercise was not only to have new pictures of the helicopters for promotional uses, but also to shoot landing exercises to show outside flight crews proper landing procedure at the university’s helipads, a health system spokeswoman said.
The new helicopters have a much bigger range than the old ones did, said hospital spokeswoman Kara Gavin.
“So we need to make sure that crews from around the region know what they’re doing if they fly in to our hospital.” ' A fourth helicopter joined the Survival Flight helicopters to take the pictures, Gavin said.
Gavin said photo shoots with the helicopters are rare, and that this is only the second one she can recall being done. Normally one helicopter is based in Livingston County while the other two stay in Ann Arbor.
She added that having the three in one place on a non-emergency mission would not be a problem if they were needed to airlift a patient.
“We have crews of nurses on two of the helicopters during the shoot so that if there’s an emergency they can peel off at a moment’s notice,” she said.
There is also a new helipad at the new Mott Children’s Hospital. The helicopters will be taking demonstration photos of landing procedures at the new pad to send to other area hospitals, Gavin said.
“It’s very important that people from other crews know how to locate the pad and land there,” Gavin said.
“Pediatric patients will be landing directly there now as well as organs for pediatric transplants.”
Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. You can sign up here to receive Business Review updates every week. Reach out to Ben at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2