I made that drive for 10+ years.....even without traffic (ambulance speeds) it's probably at minimum a 25 minute drive. St. Mary's was a client of mine for the entire time I was in Evansville. It is a Level 1 trauma unit and (I believe) the only hospital with a full time dedicated chopper.....It is a rough drive with numerous railroad tracks in addition to the pot holes.

Besides that I will say - I have worked at TSS for over 10 years....and while I wasn't there this past weekend, I have seen every kind of crash imagineable there (including the non wing guy that flipped into the pits) I've seen them land on cars, in the bean field, hung in between the signs, etc. NEVER have they called Life Flight (thank God) while I have been there so if they decided to call it was because they NEEDED to. Possibly because of the crew on board the chopper - possibly because of the equipment available on board. They never call Life Flight prematurely so if they choose to do it - it's because they see an immediate need. Fortunately, they have several off-duty county sheriff deputies on staff that can make the call to Life Flight immediately without waiting on a second opinion or someone else's request. In all the crashes I've seen there it is a very fortunate thing they haven't needed it sooner, also, with the good reports coming from the Swanson's I think this is definitely a case of "better safe than sorry".

Sacha