How to Request Care Flight
For first responders including law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency medical services and other user agencies, Care Flight is only a phone call away. For individuals experiencing a medical emergency, call 9-1-1 immediately and your call will be routed to the closest dispatch facility. All requests for Care Flight must come through a communication center or a requesting agency.
By Phone
Clinical and first responder partners can request Care Flight by calling 1-800-648-4888.
Call Care Flight When:
- The transport time by ground poses a threat to survival or recovery
- The available ambulance service does not have the equipment or clinical scope to properly care for the patient during transport
- Weather, road conditions or other factors might delay patient delivery to definitive care
- Known or suspected critically ill or injured patients are in the backcountry.
What We Need From You:
- Requesting agency name
- Call back number
- Number of Patients (you may request a rider subject to pilot’s discretion)
- Location (Latitude/Longitude if possible -or- ‘one mile north of the intersection of highway 1 and Nevada Road’)
- Weight (Combined weight if mom and baby)
Do not hesitate to call if you do not have weights. - Patient’s chief complaint
Medical Criteria for Adult and Pediatric Patients
- Adult and pediatric patients requiring emergent and time-sensitive transport, as well as advanced medical monitoring for patients requiring higher levels of care and treatment for conditions including cardiac, high-risk obstetrics, neurological, hemodynamically compromised, or other critical emergencies.
- Burns requiring treatment in a burn center. Care Flight can fly directly to regional burn centers eliminating unnecessary delays and ensure timely treatment.
- Potentially life-threatening trauma requiring treatment at a trauma center, including penetrating eye injuries.
- EMTALA physician certified, inter-facility transfer (not a patient request).
More Information
Care Flight is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by a dedicated air communications center. Requestors can make one call for all of their air transport questions and needs. If multiple patients need to be transported, contact Care Flight for additional helicopters and resources.
Care Flight can be placed on ground or airborne standby when there is a high suspicion that someone needs medical assistance. Patients are not billed unless they are transported.
Care Flight does not do search and rescue, however, it is available by request of a user agency to provide search and assist services and can land and provide medical care and transport if necessary. Care Flight does not use hoists.
