Jay Honeck wrote:

10% of the EMS fleet has been involved in an accident in the last 5 years?
That's incredible! You have to wonder at what point the public will start
doing a cost/benefit analysis of helicopter rescue ops.

Let's hope they don't. The public is scared enough of general aviation
as it is.

In all seriousness though, ground ambulances don't have that great of a
safety record, either, and they're SLOW. When it comes right down to
it, air evacuation is still the way go to in some places - for the speed
factor alone.

And even if the public hasn't noticed the accident rate, someone else
has. :-) I can't tell you how much scrutiny we were under this year -
way too many visits from FSDO.