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A West Kelowna-based helicopter company has been assisting the British Columbia government with additional air rescue services for the past year in the Okanagan Valley.
Wildcat Helicopters has performed air rescue operations 11 times since beginning the two-year trial program with the government 12 months ago.
They are working alongside Vernon Search and Rescue and Emergency Management British Columbia to help when they are needed.
“We’re looking to provide an aerial asset that can go in in a more timely fashion and can provide a higher level of medical care,” said Ian Wilson, vice president of Wildcat Helicopters.
The company has dedicated one of their $4-million helicopters to be on-call, seven days a week from dawn to dusk for use in rescue situations.
“We would provide an aircraft, all of the equipment, and the trained crews to provide a rescue medical service within B.C. and we would do that at no charge to the province, the only time we’d charge is when that service was actually used,” Wilson said. “We’re on call, from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, free of charge.”
Wildcat Helicopters has been operating in West Kelowna and in Australia for over a decade, and Wilson says they have more experience and are better equipped in rescue situations than anyone else in the country.
“This is the only aircraft of its type, configured this way, in the country, so this is a big, big, big deal for the Okanagan Valley,” he said.
Wilson said they have all sorts of specialty equipment in their rescue helicopter including an automatic chest compression tool that can go down the wire from the helicopter with the rescuers.
“That equipment, most of our emergency rooms don’t even have that,” Wilson said.
When the province does take advantage of Wildcat’s services, they are charged the standard aircraft rate, with no extra charge for the specialty equipment they provide.
Wilson said they are offering their service to the province due to a “social conscience.”
“Our staff primarily live in this area … we have a very outdoors-orientated population, a lot of our staff members are outdoors orientated,” Wilson said. “We felt that there was a need for a rescue aircraft in this area.”
The trial program with the province will run for another year, when a more longer-term partnership will be decided upon.
