GundersenAIR
When minutes matter, we deliver life-saving care inside the world’s most advanced medical helicopters. Our team can be airborne in minutes to reach the most critical patients who need us. GundersenAIR flies a 150-mile radius of La Crosse, covering western Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota. And because emergencies can happen at any time, we’re available all the time.
Call us when a patient suffered:
- Car crash and
- Ejection
- Extrication required longer than 15 minutes
- Estimated speed of vehicle exceeded 45 mph
- Patient was a pedestrian thrown more than 15 feet
- Fall from a height greater than 20 feet
- Traumatic event with paralysis, amputation or near amputation
- Burns over greater than 10 percent body surface or major burns of face, hands, feet or perineum
- Penetration or scalping injury
Or when:
- The patient has complex cardiovascular or neurovascular conditions, or other medical issues (diabetes, COPD, CHF, etc.)
- The patient needs advanced life support during transport or minimal out-of-hospital time
- Land transport would be hazardous or delayed
Call emergency dispatch now at (800) 527-1200
Call non-emergency at (608) 775-4774
Care for our youngest patients
We have a trained Neonatal Transport Team that includes neonatal nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists and a flight nurse or paramedic.
Call us for newborns who:
- Weigh less than 1,500 grams
- Are less than 32-34 weeks gestational age
- Are not doing well for unknown reasons
- Have:
- Respiratory distress or seizures regardless of cause
- Symptomatic congestive heart failure or congenital heart disease
- Signs or symptoms of sepsis or meningitis
- Congenital anomalies
- Life-threatening surgical problems
- Severe or persistent neonatal apnea
- Signs of bleeding disorders
Transportation guidelines
Interfacility transports
We fly patients between hospitals. Try to be prepared with:
- The names of the referring doctor, hospital or agency
- A phone number for call-back
- The patient's name, age, weight and date of birth
- A description of the patient's illness or injury, vital signs, medications and reasons for air transport
- Access to the patient's medical record, labs and test results
- Signed consent from the patient or family
- Requests for specialized equipment or medications needed by the flight team
- Questions on patient management or transfer criteria
Scene requests
We respond to accident scenes when a patient’s needs exceed what’s available. We'll work with the closest appropriate hospital. Try to be prepared with:
- Your agency and phone number
- Location and GPS coordinates, if possible
- Nature of the emergency and known medical information
- Number of patients
- On-scene radio frequency and unit number which will coordinate the landing site
- Landing site location, landmarks and hazards
- Name of the local hospital contacted
When the flight team is close, we’ll contact you to arrange landing and response.
Arrival preparation
Help us prepare to deliver care before we land by:
Having the patient ready.
- Begin airway management and oxygen
- Stabilize the spine for trauma patients
- Provide copies of patient records, medical history, labs and X-rays
Getting ready for our landing.
- We know the location of your hospitals’ helipad
- For accident scenes, find at least a 100-foot by 100-foot, level and well-lit landing spot free of debris, wires and trees
- Assign someone to protect the helicopter's tail rotor
Talking to us.
- Assign someone on the ground to talk with our pilot on a vehicle radio
- Disable the channel or PL and use vehicle radios, if possible
- When they make contact, have your designee brief the pilot of landing zone changes and hazards
- Our preferred frequencies are Marc 2 in Wisconsin, mutual aid in Iowa and Minsef in Minnesota.
Keeping everyone safe.
- Rotors create wind gusts up to 120 mph. Stay at least 100 feet from our landing area
- Do not approach the aircraft unless you’re with our flight crew or have permission from the pilot
- Remove or secure stretcher pads, sheets and IV poles
- Allow our medical team to bring the patient to the helicopter and operate the doors
- Move back as soon as we load the patient
The GundersenAIR helicopter
Our helicopters are hospitals in the sky with state-of-the-art medical and aviation equipment. All GundersenAIR helicopters are operated by Metro Aviation under its FAA part 135 On-Demand Air Carrier certificate number HDNA610E. Our helicopters' tail numbers are: N906GL and N618GL.
Education and event requests
You can request GundersenAIR attend your event or schedule a helipad tour or other educational event with our flight crew. Please make sure you complete our request form well in advance of your event.
Tour our hangars
School and community groups are welcome to tour our hangars in Sparta, Wisconsin, and Decorah, Iowa.
Ride along with us
We will be accepting applications for Ride-Alongs in April through May, and September through October.
Gain hands-on helicopter transport experience by spending a day with our flight team. To ride along with us, you must be at least 18 years old and working in pre-hospital, emergency, critical care or nursing or as a medical/emergency communications specialist.
We’re available to respond to emergencies 24/7.
(800) 527-1200
For business purposes, we’re open 8 am to 4 pm weekdays.
GundersenAir is a department of Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center.