A.L.E.R.T. Program
The Advanced Life-Support and Emergency Rescue Team (A.L.E.R.T.) program was established in 1975 as the first rural air ambulance service in the United States. A.L.E.R.T. is available to your scene call or interfacility transport immediately. The program does not require an accepting facility or pre-designated landing zone to launch, assist you, and help your patient to definitive care.
Hospitals and clinics can call A.L.E.R.T. dispatch and request a team even if the patient has not arrived by ambulance yet from the scene or has not had a full workup in your facility. The A.L.E.R.T. team will launch to your facility, location, or scene without delay to help provide stabilizing care, coordinate an accepting hospital or destination, and get that patient transported in the most time-sensitive manner.
About Our Assets:
A.L.E.R.T. I – Two BELL 407 helicopters with an approximately 350-mile radius around Kalispell from Cut Bank to Libby and Eureka.
A.L.E.R.T. II – A fixed-wing airplane – Pilatus PC-12 aircraft providing transport from all across Montana outside the radius of the helicopter to specialty resource centers across the United States and into Canada. It can typically provide for one family member to accompany the patient.
How we serve our community today:
- Responds to the scene of emergencies in the field, from the roadside to the mountainside.
- Transports critically ill patients to specialized facilities across the country.
- Care for patients needing specialized care, including high-risk obstetrics, critically ill infants, complex cardiac and neurological patients, and trauma patients.
- Assists with search and rescue, including water rescue, avalanche search and night vision.
About Our Program:
- Launch time goal of lift-off within 8 minutes, weather dependent. If we are unable to launch due to weather, we will deliver our critical care team and their capabilities to the scene or a rendezvous location via ambulance.
- A.L.E.R.T. carries blood products on board 24/7. These blood products are housed in the A.L.E.R.T. hangar with the team and aircraft and are available to the team at a moment’s notice without delaying transport.
- High-risk obstetric training brings S.T.A.B.L.E. certification, NRP, and Fetal Heart Monitoring among other credentials and capabilities during transport.
About Our Team:
- In addition to aircraft-specific pilots, both aircrafts are staffed by highly trained registered nurses and paramedics with extensive training and maintain multiple required certifications. In addition, they must also participate in multiple ongoing education and skills training sessions throughout the year.
- The team has recently added a neonatal and pediatric specialized team, offering a dedicated registered nurse with advanced training in the care and transport of patients from premature birth through 18 years of age
- All providers are trained in interventions including RSI, chest tube placement, ventilator management, blood product initiation and continuation, initiate and continue vasoactive medications amongst other medications and interventions found at ICU, emergency level care.