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Ms. Homewood's class exploring options
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Mercy Flight
On August 6, 2008 our class went on a tour of Mercy Flight. Mercy Flight is located at the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. Mercy Flight has been in operation since 1981. We learned that it was one of the first operations like this in the country.
The goal of Mercy Flight is to Save Lives. We learned that mercy Flight started out very small and operated only 12 hours a day. It now provides service for 24 hours a day and seven days a week. There are 80 employees who serve Western New York. There are three bases of operation, Buffalo, Olean and Batavia. Mercy Flight has a total of 5 helicopters. Each helicopter is staffed by one nurse, one paramedic, and two pilots.
Mercy Flight is a non-profit organization and depends on donations and fundraisers. Community support is very important.
The most important thing our class learned about Mercy Flight is that it provides fast air medical services to injured people. Mercy Flight fulfills its goal of life saving by responding to over 600 critically ill and injured people each year.
The entire class found this to be a very interesting trip. We learned a lot about Mercy Flight. The Buffalo base headquarters will be moving very soon to the site of the former Flying Tigers restaurant, this will be there permanent place.
