The islands' newspaper of record L, LIBRARY DUNLOP RO "' Jake Fisher Week of June 3 - 9, 2004 SANIBEL & CAPTIVA, FLORIDA VOLUME 31, NUMBER 22, 24 PAGES 75 CENTS County adds high-tech aircraft to Emergency Medical Services fleet By Donna T. Schuman patients can be hooked to all of the moni- Staff Writer toring equipment. Two emergency atten- dants will also be in the aircraft as well as The newest addition to Lee County's a pilot and a co-pilot. The make up of the Emergency Medical Services fleet will emergency personnel is not yet known, not only provide the county with the latest but will consist of some combination of advances in emergency transportation, but nurses, emergency medical technicians also represents a major upgrade to the and paramedics. level of emergency medical services avail- "Having two caregivers on board will able in Lee County. also meet the national standards for emer- The $5.5 million American Eurocopter, gency aircraft transport," O'Neal said. twin engine EC 145 air-ambulance heli- "Ninety-seven percent of EMS helicopters copter, is the first of its kind in the flying in the U.S., have two caregivers in Western Hemisphere. Med Star One, as the back and two in the front. the county calls it, provides the highest "Our plan is to have two caregivers in quality out-of-hospital emergency med- the aircraft at all times. We're also ical care and transportation, officials said. increasing the level of service, we want to The most important difference between be able to provide critical care transport the two aircraft, according to Chief Pilot service. Especially transport, neonatal, Rick O'Neal, is the size. pediatric, and other services we can "It's large enough to carry two patients accommodate with the current aircraft." and allow full body access,'" he said. "Our The new craft is also a lot safer. other aircraft, loads from the back, but The pilot's screens, called 'smart mul- there is a tunnel and the medics cannot tifunction displays," provide the pilot with access the patient due to the tunnel. It's a lot of information during the flight. The adequate for managing the airways and new craft has radar, auto pilot and full taking care of patients." Photo by Donna T. Schuman instrument capability. Due to the restricted access to the "It's large enough to carry two patients and allow full body access," said Chief Pilot "We can fly in the clouds and do every- patients, certain cases could not be trans- Rick O'Neal of the new aircraft. "It's adequate for managing the airways and taking thing that any other aircraft can do with ported by helicopter. For example, O'Neal care of patients." weather," O'Neal said. "It gives us the said, you couldn't deliver a baby in the old and the tools at hand to do more with their Due to the increase in size, the aircraft tools to safely maneuver in places and aircraft due to the space restriction. patients," he said. "That is the piece that can also carry a lot more equipment and weather that we couldn't do with the other "Now, we have all this room and it will will impact the citizens more than any- personnel. Two monitors, two ventilators See HELICOPTER give the paramedics the room they need thing else." will furnish the craft so two critical page 3 Breeze Corp. announces expansion Causeway repairs start Friday By Donna T. Schuman Site for 10th location purchased; will house production facility Staff Writer The Sanibel Causeway will undergo more tempo- By David Fischer rary repairs this week to restore damage discovered Daily Breeze Staff Writer earlier this year. i The repairs, to be performed on Span C of the 40- The Breeze Corporation is expanding with a new pro- if year-old bridge, will start Friday, June 4 and continue duction facility to provide better service to its nine exist- tor the following two weeks. ing regional locations and, ultimately, to better serve its Three steel beams will be placed between the con- readers and advertisers. crete girders underneath two different sections of The corporation finalized the purchase of a 30,000- 11 Span C of the Causeway, according to Paul Wtngard, square-foot building, located near the Southwest Florida deputy director of the Lee County Department of International Airport, Friday, The new building is more i isyi Transportation. than twice the size of the Breeze offices located on Del W&H AH "It's a precaution; the beams will not be used unless Prado Boulevard in Cape Coral, where its various publi- I there is a failure in the beam itself," Wingard said. cations are now printed. u 1 .JHffii "Upon failure, the load of the beam will be transferred Jack Giarrow, publisher of the Island Reporter and to the new beam." other Breeze publications, said the expansion has been a Photo by Michael Pixtella Zep Construction will be doing the repairs estimat- long time coming. "We're doing this in order to expand," Publisher Jack Giarrow stands in front of the new facil- ed at $440,000. Giarrow said. "We outgrew our current facility 20 years ity that will house the Breeze Corp.'s new printing and The repairs are similar to those conducted on the ago. The new building will allow us to improve our ser- production facilities. first and last portions of Span A, where crutch bents vice. It will allow us to improve our products. And it will imity to Interstate 75 will provide excellent access to the were placed to reinforce the support under the bridge. allow us to improve our production capacity." "It serves the same purpose, but the repairs are over Giarrow said the corporation has been working on the corporation's network of regional offices. "This is an indication of how much we want to invest the water so the beams must be tied to the existing pile expansion project for more than two years. Although caps," Wingard said. other options were considered, Giarrow said the site near in the market in Lee County," Giarrow said. "We believe in Lee County, and our investment is proof of that According to Wingard, those traveling over the the airport made the most sense in the end. bridge will not even know the repairs are going on. With eight offices in Lee County and one office in See BREEZE "All of the work will be done from a barge under- Charlotte County, Giarrow said the facility's close prox- page 2 neath the bridge," he added. "Drivers won't even see them and won't know that anything has happened to the bridge." INDEX . OAF OHSSH mm VET OST¥ Traffic will continue to flow during the procedure except when construction materials are being deliv- • COMMENTARY page 6 Airplane crashes CROW gets a City to amend ered to the work site. "We will block traffic once or twice a day, but not • DAIT.1TNF. page 1.0 on No. Captiva new Asst. Vet. licensing of con- tractors more for 10-20 minutes at a time," Wingard said. • RH-UESTAIE page 12 Lee County DOT has estimated the repair time at two weeks to be on the safe side. According to • ENVIRONMENT page 14 Pilot and passenger sur- Cost of new employee Wingard, the first beam should be up by Friday or vive narrow escape covered by gifts for 2 Sanibel to work with off- • TV LISTINGS page 15 island licensing Monday. Each bean takes about a day to install so vears. reciprocity. Wingard has estimated the repairs could be completed • LOOKING HACK page 18 within a week. • G ASSimns page 20 See page 3 — See page 8 — See page 5 REPAIRS • Obituary PaSe 22 page 4 2 • Week of June 3 - 9, 2004 • ISLAND REPORTER Pilot and passenger survive crash landing on No. Captiva BREEZE By Marianne Paton Breeze Corp. Editor From page 1 A pilot faced with mechanical diffi- belief." culties chose an emergency water land- While production will move to the ing to avoid the possibility of hurting new location, the Cape Coral Daily people crowded onto a North Captiva Breeze will remain in Cape Coral. beach for the Memorial Day holiday. "We're not leaving Cape Coral," The pilot of the Cessna 172, Jimmy Glarrow said. "We're simply growing. Slobodnik of Venice, said he was trying Our corporate offices, news room, classi- to correct some fuel problems when the fied ads department, circulation depart- plane lost power and he had to land. He ment and business offices will all stay at and his passenger, Nick Carlucci of 25IODelPrado." Sarasota, had been visiting friends on Construction for the new production Sanibel and were on their way back facility, located at 14051 Jetport Loop, home when the accident occurred. was actually finished in September 2003. "We have flown from Venice to this Glarrow said the structure was built as an area many times and never anticipated empty shell with little more than four any problems," Slobodnik said. "When walls and a roof. Now that the Breeze we left Sanibel, everything in the plane Corporation has closed on the property, it was functioning just fine. can begin to fill in the empty space. "As we approached North Captiva, I "We'll start to customize the building noticed the fuel was misting, so I tried for our use as soon as the permitting several standard procedures to try to process is complete," Glarrow said. "We correct the problem. But we suddenly hope to occupy the building as soon as lost power and, knowing that we could possible." never navigate the plane to the landing Photo by Marianne Paton In addition to the Breeze strip on the island, I had planned to try A pilot and his passenger narrowly escape disaster after being forced to crash their Corporation's office in Cape Coral, the to land on the beach.