Four Survive Life Force 6 Crash on Middle Burningtown Road in Macon County

According to flight logs, at about 6:58pm last night, a medical helicopter (a Eurocopter EC135 P2+) operating under the Callsign Lifeforce-6 made a crash landing on Middle Burningtown Road last night. 

Two crew members and a patient being transported from Murphy Medical Center to Memorial Mission in Asheville were then transported to Memorial Mission in Asheville with minor to moderate injuries. One patient was transported to Angel Medical Center. In a press release, Emergency Management Director Warren Cabe said that Middle Burningtown Road would be closed until after an investigation had been completed on Friday. 

According to FAA and NTSB Databases, there are no previous accidents involving N558MT.

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Below are various items related to the crash, including a press release, audio of the initial callout, information about the last flight obtained from flight trackers, and a history of the airframe from the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Macon County EMS and Burningtown-Iotla VFD Dispatched

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Press Release
Macon County Emergency Services
March 9, 2023
Warren Cabe, Director

Investigators will be on scene of an aircraft crash in Macon County on Friday. A medical transport helicopter crashed west of the Macon County Airport in the Burningtown community around 7 PM. The aircraft was transporting a patient and three crew members and was enroute from a medical facility in Murphy, N.C. to Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. Three individuals involved were transported by ground ambulance to Mission Hospital with minor to moderate injuries and one patient was transported to Angel Medical Center for evaluation.

There were no fatalities and no fire although the aircraft sustained severe damage. A section of Middle Burningtown Road will be closed until at least late day on Friday as investigators sift through the wreckage and work to determine the cause of the accident.

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Altitude and Speed Tracking for the last flight of N558MT.

Here are the flights taken by Life Force 6 on March 9, 2023.

And here is a registration history for the helicopter that includes previous owners of the airframe.

Dates	Entity and Location
26-Sep-2022	Med-Trans Corporation in Denton TX
28-Mar-2017	TVPX Aircraft Solutions Inc Trustee in North Salt Lake UT
06-feb-2015	Wells Fargo Bank Northwest National Trustee in Salt Lake City UT
30-nov-2012	Wells Fargo Bank Northwest National Trustee in Lewisville TX
12-oct-2012	Wells Fargo Bank Northwest National Trutee in Lewisville TX
17-aug-2012	American Eurocopter Corp in Grand Prairie TX

Here are other news sources regarding the crash.

• N558MT Crash [Aviation Safety Network]



• LIFE FORCE helicopter carrying patient crashes in Macon County [WLOS-TV (Asheville, NC)]



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Published at 5:01am on Friday, March 10, 2023
Author: Bobby Coggins

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Letter to the Editor Acknowledging Quick Response by Cullasaja Fire Department and Macon County EMS

I want to thank and acknowledge the Cullasaja Fire Department's prompt and professional assistance when I was bitten by a copperhead Thursday morning. I've always been concerned about a response in the event of an emergency, as we are somewhat remote. First responders were on site in five minutes; EMS a few minutes later. Everyone was amazing. Thank you for everything.

So people are asking for "the story." If you're interested, here goes:

Bill and I had been gone from home almost two weeks and had returned in time to do laundry, pay bills, and get ready for company to arrive on Friday. We had already canceled on these friends—twice!—and I was bound and determined not to let anything interfere with our plans this time.

My to-do list Thursday was a mile long. I was home alone and had almost completed item #1: watering my dying outdoor plants; it obviously had not rained the entire time we were in Alaska. I was barefoot (I know, I’m an idiot), and as I walked down my mulched path to water the last ten feet of my garden, I noted a weed in front of a small hosta. Watering with my right hand, I reached down with my left to pull the weed.

As I did, an adult copperhead (2-3’ long—I couldn’t tell because he was coiled under the plant) struck my left middle finger. Obviously threatened, he struck from a foot or so away.

Having a history of anaphylaxis from simple insect bites, I knew that response time was of the essence. Within 60 seconds, I was in the house and calling 911. We live at the top of a mountain in a very small town, and I’ve always been concerned about response times in case of emergency. I’m thankful that within five minutes, first responders had arrived, and the 911 operator stayed on the phone with me until they did.

Five minutes later, there were I-don’t-know-how-many ambulances/fire trucks/emergency vehicles in our driveway. I want to encourage my Franklin neighbors to have confidence in our local emergency services! I was rushed to Angel Hospital in Franklin, where I received outstanding care for a few hours. As my finger, my hand, and my arm began to swell, ED nurses began marking my hand and arm, noting increasing circumferences at different points every half-hour or so.

It was interesting: I could feel the venom travel from my fingertip (fortunately, only one fang had hit me, about 1/4 inch below my first joint), down my finger to my hand, then my wrist, and then up my arm. The sense of the moving venom was followed by intense nerve pain that manifested even before each area swelled. Slowly but surely, my hand swelled until it looked like a surgical glove that had been blown up like a balloon. My hand began to discolor, as did my arm, as the swelling increased and worked its way up to my shoulder, chest, and back. They warned me that the entire appendage would probably turn black and that I should be prepared for the worst.

The medical folks were concerned about a lot of things, primarily

my heart
my kidneys
tissue necrosis
blood clots
liver failure

Debating whether or not to begin antivenin, they were receiving step-by-step direction from National Poison Control. Because of the tremendous cost of CroFab, the antivenin used for snakebites (each vial costs about $2,500, each infusion requires 4–6 vials, and the treatment is usually 4 infusions), they do not immediately administer the drug unless they know the snake was a baby; babies evidently hang on to the skin longer and release more venom than adults unless the adult is close to death. But when my swelling started progressing far quicker than anticipated and the situation became life-threatening, they began CroFab here at Angel Hospital.

At that point, they informed me they needed to transfer me to the trauma center at Mission Hospital in Asheville. I continued receiving CroFab in the ambulance and then was treated in the ED there for two or three hours.

It was a riot: at both hospitals, there was a steady stream of employees, interns, PAs, nurses, and even physicians coming to my room to ask me if they could look at my hand and arm. They kept saying, “We’ve trained for this, but we’ve never actually seen a snakebite victim before! What did it feel like? How did you know it was a copperhead? How does it feel now?” Some of the younger ones actually said, “Oh, that is SO COOL!” I felt like part of a freak show at the circus or, as my daughter-in-law, Estel said, a member of the ensemble of The Greatest Showman. :-)

They administered round #2 of CroFab and moved me to the Trauma Unit. The swelling continued to increase, but—I’m convinced, because of the prayers of all of you—my vital signs and blood work, monitored every 15 minutes or so, stayed positively perfect. By midnight, however, I could not move my hand at all. They gave me round #3 of CroFab at 3:00 am, and round #4 at 9:00.

At that point, I began moving my fingers a bit. I sensed the swelling was beginning to diminish. The medical staff had prepared me for a long stay, possibly a week or two. But within hours, they decided to release me. Poison Control ended up being a bit unhappy about that decision, but I promise you, all I wanted to do was get home to my own bed.

Over the past two days, the swelling and pain has continued traveling across my chest, but Poison Control assures me this is no big deal. Lymph node involvement is completely normal, and the symptoms should dissipate in the next two weeks or so.

My arm is NOT black. My hand is NOT necrotic. The swelling has tremendously decreased. I am typing now without much discomfort. I am believing my hand and arm will be completely healed and restored, to the glory of God.

So thank you! Thanks for all the love. Thanks for the prayers and encouragement and support. It is nothing short of miraculous that everything the medical professionals anticipated and warned against has not come to pass. I must tell you that I have never once been anxious or fearful. If anything, I was massively annoyed that this incident was cramping my style and interfering with my plans. I had the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. Through the entire ordeal, the verse that kept flowing through my mind was from Luke 10:19:

"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."

Now, I don’t recommend trampling on the nasty creatures. But it was enough of a correlation to give me complete confidence in the power of Christ in me. A snake ain’t no thang to Him.

However, I’d like to recommend rubber boots and leather gloves whenever you work in the garden.

Thanks again for prayerfully carrying my family and me through this experience.

Love,
Lindsay

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PRESS RELEASEPartnership Between Mission Health and Macon County Leadership Results in New Ambulance and Enhanced EMS Services for Macon County Residents

PRESS RELEASE
Mission Health

Asheville, NC (November 7, 2017) – A successful collaboration between Mission Health and Macon County leadership, with extraordinary support from the Highlands-Cashiers Hospital Foundation, the Mission Health Department of Philanthropy and generous community donors, has resulted in the fully-funded purchase of a much-needed, brand new ambulance for emergency patient transport in Macon County.

“When I learned about the need to improve medical transport for Highlands and all of Macon County, I was pleased to make a significant contribution to this important cause,” said community donor Mark T. Mahaffey.  “My intent was to expedite the project by making a challenge gift to complete the funding by year-end 2016.  It was exciting to see so many good folks in Highlands come forward to meet the goal.”

A key factor in acquiring this new ambulance has been the proactive partnership between Mission Health System Regional Transport Services and Macon County EMS.  Their collaborative work and detailed analysis of peak utilization and emergency transport response times for transfers in Macon County drove this decision.  That analysis demonstrated a 29% increase in out-of-county patient transfers from Highlands-Cashiers and a 46% increase from Macon County.  When an ambulance must transport a patient out of the County, local coverage suffers.  This new Quick Response Vehicle will strengthen 911 coverage in the area by offering greatly increased availability for residents.

As part of this ongoing partnership, both Mission Health Regional Transport Services and Macon County EMS have added new resources to address and improve coverage in the county. Mission Health and Macon County have worked closely to ensure that Mission Health System Regional Transport Services are available to serve the community five days per week, 24 hours a day double the previous coverage of five days a week for 12 hours per day.  Macon County EMS has provided modified staffing that includes the addition of 3 new positions, an important increase in resources to provide necessary back-up staffing.  This expanded coverage is significant for those who deliver or receive emergency care.

Response time, state-of-the-art technology and expert EMS caregivers are the most valuable elements when it comes to providing critical, rapid response treatment to patients experiencing a health emergency or are involved in a serious accident.  Macon County Director of Emergency Services Warren Cabe emphasized that this new vehicle and its state-of-the-art features will even more effectively serve community members. “The time saving element alone that we’ll see from the addition of this new emergency vehicle combined with related staffing changes will translate into significantly more accessible and enhanced care for patients in the Macon County area,” he stated. “To be direct, the service we are able to provide to our customers will be greatly improved.”

The new, state-of-the-art vehicle is outfitted with truly advanced features that essentially make it an “Intensive Care Unit on wheels”, including a Zoll X series monitor defibrillator, a Newport HT 70 Ventilator, a Stryker Powered stretcher and Stair Chair, and specialized Pediatric Resuscitation System, as well as a highly sophisticated Kenwood 2-way radio system.  Importantly, this new vehicle is ideally equipped to meet the MAMA landing site for patient air transport to the hospital.

Kathy Guyette, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services and President, Regional Member Hospitals, Mission Health, sees the addition of the new ambulance as not only a benefit to Macon County residents, but a valuable resource for the entire region. “This new emergency vehicle will immediately and measurably improve the level of care we can offer patients, and those who must be transferred to Mission Hospital will continue to receive the best pre-hospital arrival treatment available,” she said. “This will help hospital staff in Asheville as well, and serve to further unify our services region-wide.”

Learn about our critical funding needs at http://cases.missionphilanthropy.org.

ABOUT MISSION HEALTH

Mission Health, based in Asheville, North Carolina, is the state’s sixth-largest health system. For the fifth time in the past six years, Mission Health has been named one of the nation’s Top 15 Health Systems by Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Company and part of IBM Watson Health in 2017. We are the only health system in North Carolina to achieve this recognition. Mission Health operates six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, post-acute care provider CarePartners, long-term acute care provider Asheville Specialty Hospital, and the region’s only dedicated Level II trauma center. With approximately 12,000 team members and 2,000 volunteers, Mission Health is dedicated to improving the health and wellness of the people of western North Carolina. For more information, please visit mission-health.org or @MissionHealthNC.

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