New $3 million air ambulance to be based at Nelson Airport

The Flying Doctor Service has a new $3 million air ambulance that will be based at Nelson Airport, where more than half of its missions departed from in the last year.

The service flew 1289 missions across the country in the year to last June, with 651 of those departing from Nelson.

Mark Sullivan, an Anglican vicar and pilot himself, became an unexpected air ambulance patient in August 2022.

He was flying his Cessna home to Christchurch with a passenger after a weekend in Blenheim with the New Zealand Cessna 180/185 Group when his plane crashed near Murchison.

"We'd landed at eight airstrips for the day and the one where I crashed was by far the easiest and I just made a mistake and we went in."

Two rescue helicopters came to his aid. The Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter was piloted by his friend Tim Douglas-Clifford.

"It was good to see a happy face, I remember him saying, 'come on Sully, we've got to put those teeth back in'."

Sullivan had been knocked out, both his jaw bones were damaged, he had lost teeth, some of the tendons in his hand were severed and he had a head injury.

"I didn't realise the extent of my injuries, I just thought I'd cut my lip and my leg and sprained my ankle. It wasn't actually until I got to Nelson I found out how bad things were."

He was taken to Nelson Hospital for surgery, but the seriousness of his situation meant he needed further treatment in Christchurch urgently and an air ambulance was the only option.

He did not remember that critical flight home.

"I had an operation and they repaired a lot of the superficial stuff but I had to come back to Christchurch for extensive jaw surgery and micro-surgery on my hand and I remember it being seamless."

He said if he had to travel the 400-odd kilometres by road, it would have been an entirely different journey.

"It would have been a six-, seven- or perhaps even eight-hour trip because they couldn't go very fast with my head injury. It would have been horrific."

Sullivan said he thought the air ambulance was the most underrated emergency service in the country.

"I've got to say I hope I never, ever have to fly with it again, but there is a great deal of consolation in knowing an aircraft of that size and that currency is going to be of benefit to anyone who might need it."

Flying Doctor Service Trust chairperson Dr David Bowie pioneered the service almost 30 years ago. It now has bases in Nelson, Greymouth and Christchurch.

He said the new plane, a Beechcraft Super King Air B200, was set up as an intensive care unit to transport patients from the regions to hospitals in the main centres where they could receive highly specialised care.

"The need for air ambulances has just increased and increased. When we first started doing this work formally in 2003, we were doing 200 cases a year, now we are doing 1200 cases."

The plane is flown by pilots specialised in air ambulance work and staffed by ICU nurses from Nelson Hospital.

Dr Bowie said the new aircraft would make for a more efficient service.

"It is going to require less maintenance, it has a fully electronic cockpit, it is set up for two stretchers, it can fly anywhere in New Zealand, it is reasonably fast and its range is such that we can go to the Chatham Islands for example, which is one of our destinations we service from Christchurch ."

The service is operated by GCH Aviation.

Its Nelson base manager Ryan O'Rourke said the region's population was scattered over a large area and with no tertiary hospital, there was a high demand for flights to the main centres.

"We are helping to move between 800 and 900 patients a year at the moment, so it is really significant numbers ... it is a good number of people that the service has been able to assist getting to the medical care they need and then back again."

The Flying Doctor Service asked the Nelson community to suggest a name for the new plane, which will be revealed when it is officially blessed at a service in Nelson on Thursday evening.