If you’re badly hurt in the Florida Keys, this is why you’ll need to take a helicopter
The Florida Keys is a great place to chill. It’s not so great to get badly hurt while chilling.
Monroe County is a remote area, classified as a rural county by the state of Florida. won’t You won’t find trauma centers or advanced medical care if you get seriously injured in a car crash or get shot or stabbed on the street.
And the 120-mile drive from Key West to the mainland on the Overseas Highway is anything but easy, even in light traffic.
Yes, the county does have three full-service hospitals, in Tavernier, Marathon and Key West. But they aren’t equipped to save lives that are in immediate grave danger.
That means the county’s air ambulance is busy. Very busy.
The Keys’ fire-rescue department and sheriff’s office jointly run the Trauma Star helicopter service, which transports the most serious of patients to trauma or specialized hospitals in Miami-Dade County.
Here’s what to know about the service:
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About the Keys air ambulance
▪ Number of choppers: The Trauma Star service in the Florida Keys consists of three helicopters that are run out of two locations: at Florida Keys Marathon International Airport in the Middle Keys and at Lower Keys Medical Center on Stock Island.
▪ Number of patients: Last year, the helicopters conducted 1,386 flights and transported 1,458 patients, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Those numbers make it one of the busiest air ambulance services in the U.S. By comparison, according to Federal Aviation Administration and Association of Air Medical Services data, the national average for similar programs is 264 patients a year. “The Trauma Star average is more than five times that amount,” said Adam Linhardt, the spokesman for the sheriff’s office. The program is on track to set a new patient record in 2022.
▪ When it began: The county’s Trauma Star program began with one helicopter in 2002, under the direction of then-Sheriff Rick Roth.
▪ Who runs it: The Trauma Star network is a partnership between Monroe County’s fire-rescue department and the sheriff’s office. Pilots are sheriff’s office employees, and the flight nurses and medics are fire-rescue staff.
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Keys hospitals
If you aren’t seriously injured enough to be flown to Miami on the Trauma Star, you may wind up in one of the three hospitals in the Florida Keys.
They are:
▪ Lower Keys Medical Center: 5900 College Rd. Key West 305-294-5531 Key West’s Lower Keys Medical Center is a for-profit hospital owned by Community Health Systems. It has 167 beds spread over two locations. The main campus with an emergency room is on College Road on Stock Island. The hospital has another campus, the dePoo Medical Building at 1200 Kennedy Drive in Key West.
▪ Fishermen’s Community Hospital: 3301 Overseas Highway Marathon 305-434-1000 This hospital is in the Middle Keys city of Marathon and run by the nonprofit Baptist Health South Florida. The entirely new 33,330-square foot, 22-bed hospital opened earlier this year after the original 1962-era hospital was severely damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017.
▪ Mariners Hospital: 91500 Overseas Highway Tavernier 305-434-3000 In the Upper Keys, Mariners Hospital is a 25-bed hospital run by Baptist Health South Florida. Mariners dates back to 1962.
