SANDPOINT - Within three hours of opening the doors of its new base at Sandpoint Airport last week, Life Flight Network was racing toward Priest Lake to pick up an unconscious elderly man with a critical injury.

"It goes to show there is a very big need for air medical support up here," said Dominic Pomponio, regional director of clinical operations.

Bonner County Emergency Medical Services and Priest Lake EMTs were notified of the call at 10:24 a.m. Life Flight was activated at 10:37 a.m.

The chopper touched down at 11:07 a.m. and was back up 10 minutes later en route to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. It arrived at the hospital at 11:47 a.m.

Bonner County EMS Chief Rob Wakeley said the call marked a significant advancement of emergency medical services in Bonner County.

"A critically injured person in a very remote area of our county was delivered to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane within 83 minutes of our system being notified. This was 27 minutes faster than our last airlift out of the same area in clear weather conditions," Wakeley said in a statement.

Life Flight's Sandpoint operation currently employs 14 people. It will operate on a round-the-clock basis with on-duty crews consisting of a pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic and a mechanic.

The operation's centerpiece is a Eurocopter A-Star helicopter, a craft that renowned for high-altitude flights.

"It's a workhorse. It's a great aircraft," said Pomponio.

An A-Star touched down on 29,035-foot Mount Everest in 2005. Variants of the A-Star have also been used to pluck alpinists off Annapurna I in Nepal.

"It went very smoothly and it was a very fast response to the scene," Pomponio said of that first call for service.