ELYRIA — The Lorain County Regional Airport could land a new deal as a local base for the helicopters of Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center.

The Level 1 trauma center is looking to expand its air medical transport by stationing one of its three active helicopters at a western base and is considering a hangar at one of the airports in Lorain or Medina counties.

CHRONICLE FILE

Cleveland Metro Life Flight owns four twin-engine, medically configured Sikorsky S-76 helicopters. The fourth aircraft is held in reserve for maintenance rotation. The S-76 is the largest civilian EMS helicopter in North America. Each aircraft is capable of transporting two patients or one neonatal container and up to four medical crew members in addition to the two pilots assigned to each trip.

“We’re running at about 60 percent capacity on each helicopter,” said Charles Emerman, chairman of emergency medicine at MetroHealth. “We can do significantly more flights, and having a base somewhere out (near Lorain and Medina counties) would provide a lot of advantages for us.”

Emerman said MetroHealth already has sent its helicopters on close to 200 medical runs to Lorain County this year — a number on par with its annual average.

The potential move has received the backing of local emergency rescue crews, including the South Lorain County Ambulance District, which is particularly vulnerable when it comes to cases of severe trauma, according to its executive director, Pat Wilkinson.

“This is due to the very rural setting we are in,” Wilkinson wrote in a letter to county commissioners. “… If we can reduce the response time to the patient, everyone will benefit.”

County Commissioners Ted Kalo, Lori Kokoski and Betty Blair each said they’d welcome MetroHealth, although none could comment about the ongoing negotiations.

“It’s nice to have them for the service, but it would be very prestigious to have them out here,” Kalo said. “It would be a win-win for both (Metro Health and Lorain County).”

The county airport briefly served as one of the bases of University Hospitals’ MedEvac helicopters up until last year.

A MedEvac spokesman at the time said the helicopter had failed to put a dent in the county’s air medical transport field and left for the less-busy skies of Summit County instead.

MetroHealth currently stations two of its helicopters at its hospital in Cleveland and its third at Aultman Hospital in Canton.

Emerman said the hospital eventually may move each of its helicopters to local airports, which would provide for a safer and more cost-effective environment. The helicopters currently have to refuel and be maintained off-site.

The county airport has everything the hospital would need in a site except crew quarters, he said, but a decision could be made soon.

“They have a price they want, and we have a budget we have to meet,” Emerman said. “Right now, we’re playing with a map of where our patients come from, and we think that moving closer and having closer ties to Lorain County hospitals and Lorain County would increase our numbers.”

Contact Stephen Szucs at 329-7129 or sszucs@chroniclet.com.

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