Key Stats Mt Isa: FY24
- People helped – 115 (up 20% on FY23)
- 159 flying hours
- 111 missions
- 8,177 people helped across the LifeFlight network (up 11.2% on FY23)
The Mount Isa-based LifeFlight aeromedical crew came to the aid of 115 people in FY24 – eclipsing the previous record of 96 in FY23 by nearly 20 per cent.
It contributed to an overall record 8,177 people helped by LifeFlight in FY24 – more than 11 per cent higher than the previous year.
LifeFlight’s fleet of helicopters, air ambulance jets and specially trained medical teams, including LifeFlight critical care doctors, flight nurses and Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) paramedics, helped patients with a range of illnesses and injuries.
It was the aeromedical organisation’s 17th year in the northwest where the Mount Isa crews rescued people with a range of needs, which included search and rescues of people lost in the outback, bogged in vehicles or injured by animals.
The crew spent 159 hours in the air travelling vast distances to help people in often highly remote areas.
There were four people helped following motor vehicle incidents and search and rescue missions for 16 people.
The LifeFlight crew was called to two road traffic crashes in one weekend, including where an overseas tourist was taken to hospital after her car rolled over east of Camooweal.
Another accident involved the chopper crew airlifting three patients to hospital including a primary school aged child when a truck collided with a ute, before it veered off the road and into a tree.
LifeFlight Chief Operating Officer Lee Schofield, said the Mt Isa crew demonstrated a high degree of aeromedical excellence during the past financial year.
“The missions run the gamut of emergency care and rescue operations and show how our crews face vastly different situations with fortitude and strength,” he said.
“It demonstrates how crucial LifeFlight’s operations are in helping people who need emergency medical assistance in remote locations far from major cities and hospitals.
“We couldn’t be prouder of how all our critical care doctors, paramedics and air crew have conducted themselves this past year often in very trying circumstances. They rescue people across regional and remote Queensland and for that we owe them a debt of gratitude.”
LifeFlight Medical Director Dr Jeff Hooper, said the organisation continued to lead the way in the aeromedical sector thanks to its world-leading standards of care.
“This is often while our crews deal with extremely challenging conditions, whether that is stabilising a patient mid-air, winching down a paramedic to the side of a cliff face, or rescuing people stranded in the ocean,” said Dr Hooper.
“Our teams have the specialist emergency medicine skills required to provide the best available treatment to people, who are often in remote locations, while battling the elements.
“Our critical care doctors, nurses and paramedics are a mobile intensive care team and their rapid aeromedical intervention often mean the difference between life and death. That’s why the work is so important to hundreds of thousands of people living in regional and remote Queensland communities.”
Mt Isa will soon be home to a new aeromedical facility. It follows a Queensland Government grant of $3.9 million and $2.9 million in Australian Government funding.
Construction is due to start on the facility this year and will co-locate LifeFlight and the Royal Flying Doctor Service to secure the future of aeromedical rescues in the region.
Since taking to the skies 45 years ago LifeFlight has helped close to 90,000 people.
LifeFlight rescue helicopters contribute to the Queensland Emergency Helicopter Network via a fully costed agreement with the Queensland Government which came into effect April 2024.
