LifeFlight proposes relocation of Shelbyville air ambulance base

Email | Print By Paige Orr

11-10-2004 2:45 PM — Vanderbilt University’s LifeFlight may move its Shelbyville-based air ambulance to the Tullahoma Regional Airport to better accommodate LifeFlight’s three new aircraft in a location with global positioning satellite (GPS) technology on-site.

LifeFlight, which placed a helicopter at Bedford County Medical Center in Shelbyville in August 2000, now is interested in keeping its air ambulances in a hangar where they can receive necessary maintenance and shelter from severe weather. The move would place the aircraft closer to seven other hospitals in the area, according to Vanderbilt.

Each of the three new air ambulances carried a price tag of $5.4 million. LifeFlight has four helicopter bases, located in Shelbyville, Mount Pleasant, Lebanon and Clarksville.

Dr. John Morris Jr., medical director of LifeFlight, and Jeanne Yeatman, LifeFlight’s program director, have discussed the relocation with the Tullahoma Airport Authority. (Morris also, indirectly, is an investor in Nashville Post Co.) On Tuesday, Yeatman presented to the Tullahoma Airport Authority Board a proposal that included the construction of a hangar that would be built by the airport authority and leased back to LifeFlight.

Tullahoma Mayor Steve Cope said the city has economic and community development funds that could be loaned to the airport authority, which would then build the hangar and lease it to Vanderbilt. Then the airport authority would pay the funds back to the city at the same interest rate paid by other enterprises that enter community or expand, providing jobs in the area. Cope estimates construction of the hangar would cost under a quarter of a million. On Tuesday, the airport authority unanimously voted in support of the project. The airport authority will go before the city board Nov. 22.