Helicopters flying in and out from the Redwood Area Hospital won’t have to jostle for space with cars anymore, with Friday’s dedication of the new helipad.
Jim Schulte, Redwood Area Hospital CEO, stated, “The new helipad at the hospital was opened for official use and patient transport as of Sunday, November 8.”
For the last few weeks, while the helipad was being built, any patients who need to be airlifted were driven to North Ambulance’s helicopter station at the Redwood Falls airport.
Until a few weeks ago, the hospital used the west parking lot as a helipad. Whenever a helicopter landed, the hospital staff had to rush to clear any cars out of the south end of that lot.
While that’s not strictly necessary any more, Schulte continued, “As in the past, the practice will continue for moving vehicles from the south end of the west parking lot when a helicopter is going to land.
“The past practice will also continue for controlling traffic at both Gould Street entrances to the west parking lot when a helicopter lands. All other past safety practices will continue.”
According to Andrew Kehren, of the engineering firm of Bolton and Menk, “The total project cost will be about $160,000, which includes the reconfiguration and construction of the service road, other concrete walk repairs, fencing, site grading, turf restoration and other misc. construction items, re-permitting of the heliport with MnDOT and professional services.
“The construction cost for the actual heliport was about $60,000, of which about half of that cost was for electric lighting and the other half was for concrete work and pavement markings.”
The lot around the helipad is scheduled to be reseeded and fenced in this week.
