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Council meets with reps from Life Flight Network
By Tracy Dugan
Members of Tribal Council met
with staff from Oregon's Life
Flight Network on November 4
to discuss the possibility of set
ting up a helipad at the Tribe's new Health
Clinic, currently under construction.
The meeting, held at Legacy Emanuel Hos
pital in Portland, included explanations of the
Life Flight Global Positioning Project, and
how the Tribe may be able to participate in
helping to transport injured people to major
hospitals from Oregon's rural areas.
The Life Flight Network was established in
1978 as the first medical helicopter transport
in the Northwest. The Life Flight personnel
travel an area from Olympia, Washington to
Roseburg, Oregon; and from Astoria to
Pendleton and other eastern parts of Oregon.
This large service area works with 57 hospi
tals, over 100 fire departments, and more than
200 communities. This service area covers
two-thirds of Oregon's population. They have
been instrumental in saving the lives of se
verely injured people by flying them to major
hospitals in minutes.
Life Flight Network is fully equipped as a
mobile critical care and coronary care unit,
with the ability to perform blood transfusions and cardiop
ulmonary bypass.
Each helicopter is equipped with over $400,000 worth of
state-of-the-art medical equipment. Fifty percent of all flight
calls are trauma scene calls, and the remaining fifty percent
are interhospital transfers of critically ill or injured patients.
This new Global Positioning Project (GPS) Life Flight is
undertaking would allow Life Flight pilots to pinpoint ex-
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act geographic locations of hospitals or scene accidents with
very advanced equipment, and is more accurate than the
current ground-based navigational system.
The GPS system will significantly improve safety, espe
cially when Network pilots encounter unforecasted adverse
weather conditions. The main advantage of Global Posi
tioning is that it will allow Life Flight to operate at lower
minimum enroute altitudes to avoid icing conditions.
Life Flight's goal is for all communities, cities, and towns
in their service area to become GPS operational within the
next two to three years. Because Grand Rondc is in their
service area and the Tribe is building a Health Clinic for
tribal members as well as the community, a helipad would
seem to be the natural answer for routing accident victims
to a major trauma hospital. To date, Life Flight has made
23 response calls to the Grand Rondc area this year.
Restoration
Celebration
On Saturday, November 23 the annual Resto
ration Celebration will be held at Grand Ronde
Elementary School. Dinner will begin at noon,
and a mini pow-wow will follow the dinner.
The Pow-wow Committee is looking forward to
seeing everyone there! Conic and help celebrate
the Tribe's history!
Budget comment period open
The annual Budget Hearing was held on November 3 at
the monthly General Council meeting. All tribal members
were given an opportunity to comment on the 1997 Pro
posed Budget, and were mailed a copy of the Proposed
Budget for their review.
The membership of the Tribe is encouraged and wel
come to comment on the Proposed 1997 Budget, and writ
ten comments may be mailed or hand-delivered to the
Tribal Council offices. All comments must be submitted
by December 10, 1996 for the Council's review and con
sideration. If you did not receive a copy of the Proposed
Budget, you may obtain one by contacting Greg Archu
leta at the tribal offices, 1-800-422-0232, extension 2250.
Tribal Council will finalize and approve the budget by the
end of December.
Submit comments to: Jackie Whisler, Tribal Council Ad
ministrative Assistant, 9615 Grand Ronde Road, Grand
Ronde, Oregon 97347.
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Tribal Christmas Party
All tribal members and their families are in
vited to attend at the annual tribal Christ
mas Party on Saturday, December 14. The
party will be held at Grand Rondc
Elementary School and will feature
a Christmas dinner, Santa, raffles,
arts, crafts, and much more fun.
Come and celebrate the season!
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