PICKAWAY – A medical helicopter service that had officially found a home inside Pickaway County is now flying into the sunset, but they are not only leaving Circleville but Ohio.
According to Steven Perry Director of Corporate Compliance for Survival Fight coming to Pickaway County area just made sense for the company in January.
“A good amount of our service runs are coming out of this area,” said Perry, “We were housed at Mount Carmel so moving made sense because we were flying from Columbus south to Pickaway and surrounding areas already. Now instead of a fifteen minute flight south to a service run and a fifteen minute run back to Columbus we are already here. This saves us time and expense and most importantly it saves response time for people who desperately need it.”
Circleville Township Trustees approved the three year agreement with the option for more during regular meeting on January 20, 2020. During the June 29th meeting Survival flight said that they have ended that agreement effective immediately.
So what happened between January and now? According to Ryan Stubenrauch spokesperson for Survival Flight a downturn of events happened due to COVID-19. The cost of the location vs the number of flights had gone down and it wasn’t economically feasible to continue the location. Only the Ohio branch of the company will be closing, as it was the furthest out from the core. Survival flight had to bases of operation in Ohio one in Circleville and one in Marion Ohio.
