Vandy Life Flight to Establish Base in Cookeville

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and Vanderbilt LifeFlight, in partnership with Cookeville Regional Medical Center have announced that an emergency helicopter base will be established in Cookeville to serve the Upper Cumberland region.
According to a report in the Herald Citizen, the helicopter will have a 120-mile response area from Cookeville, and it will transport patients who require advanced medical and surgical care from prehospital scenes and hospitals in the region back to CRMC.
The primary purpose of the Cookeville LifeFlight base will be to bring patients from the Upper Cumberland who require advanced medical and surgical care from prehospital scenes and hospitals in the region to CRMC and will be available to meet other calls for aeromedical services which may arise, according to Sullivan Smith, M.D. and Emergency Department Medical Director for CRMC.
A site for the new base is expected to open this summer.
Vanderbilt LifeFlight, accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Trauma Systems (CAMTS), has flown more than 38,000 patients since 1984. LifeFlight transports to any medically appropriate hospital and has immediate access to the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, Burn Center and Children’s Hospital, all at VUMC.
LifeFlight also provides hospital-based emergency air medical transport services throughout Tennessee and Southern Kentucky, with remote helicopter bases in Lebanon, Tullahoma, Clarksville, Murfreesboro, Mt. Pleasant and Henry County. LifeFlight also operates an airplane base at Nashville International Airport and has five ground ambulances as well as an event medicine division.
The AirMedCare Network including Air Evac and Life Force also serves portions of the Upper Cumberland area.