(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) With the new Intermountain Life Flight jet that will be used primarily to retrieve organs for transplantation in the Intermountain West in the background, liver transplant recipient Meinkina Jewkes,12, talks about her transplant with the media during a news conference at the Intermountain Life Flight Hangar at the Salt Lake International Airport in Salt Lake City Monday October 30, 2017. Meinkina was joined by her mother Jennifer at the podium.
The small jet cruises at more than 500 mph and can soar across the country in a few hours. Onboard are a surgeon and two surgical coordinators, often briefed on the trip’s details just minutes before takeoff.
Their goal? Obtain hearts, livers, kidneys or other transplant organs as fast as possible, then return them to Utah in hopes of saving a patient’s life.
In long-distance organ retrieval operations, where minutes can make a life-or-death difference, Utah medical officials said Monday that a new Cessna Citation CJ4 jet — devoted entirely to organ retrieval and similar trips to and from Utah — has already made a positive impact in its first year of operation.
Officials unveiled the $7 million jet Monday at a private hangar near Salt Lake City International Airport, while also announcing a new partnership between Intermountain Healthcare’s Life Flight air ambulance service and Intermountain Donor Services, a nonprofit agency that coordinates organ transfers in Utah and parts of Idaho and Nevada.
Other medical centers including University Hospital will have access to the jet, which will also be deployed on occasion to transport patients in emergency situations. While the aircraft has been in operation for nearly a year — with 81 trips so far — it has now been fully retrofitted with medical equipment essential for transporting organs, officials said.
“It’s forward-thinking to make investments like this in a market where there is incredible competition to save everyone’s life,” said Richard Gilroy, medical director of the liver transplant program at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City. He said flights to retrieve organs are a part of about 70 percent of all procedures they do.
Before, Life Flight often used one of its three turboprop planes, Beechcraft King Airs, to obtain organs. The planes are 200 mph slower than the jet, fly at lower elevations and were more easily grounded due to poor weather.
An East Cost trip could sometimes take two days — compared to 12 to 14 hours with the new jet — due to weather and limits on how many hours a pilot can fly, said Kent Johnson, director of aviation operations for Life Flight.
When it did need a jet, Intermountain Donor Services would contract with Keystone Aviation, a private aviation firm in Salt Lake City. But sometimes the company wouldn’t have any jets available, said Tracy Schmidt, executive director of Intermountain Donor Services. So Keystone would find a plane in another city, fly it to Salt Lake City, pick up the surgical team and then head to wherever the organ was located.
“It’s not efficient, and it’s extremely expensive,” Schmidt said of the prior method.
The new jet is ready to go at any time, Schmidt said, with a pilot always on call and ready for takeoff in less than an hour.
But a speedy trip is only part of the organ retrieval equation. Often, the surgeon arrives and finds out the organ won’t work for the patient, putting them back on an organ-transplantation waiting list.
That happened to Orangeville resident Kina Jewkes, 12. As she stood next to her mother Jennifer on Monday, Kina shared her story of getting a new liver — and the chance of a healthier life along with it.
Kina complained of a severe itching problem when she was younger, and when she was 9, her mother said, the family learned from doctors it was due to liver disease. Kina got on the liver transplant list more than a year ago.
In October, the family heard from Primary Children’s Hospital a liver was available, but it turned out to be too big. Then in December, they got another call, but that liver had blood clots. In February, a partial liver doctors thought might be a candidate for Kina didn’t work out.
Finally in April, a healthy liver came through. A chipper Kina said Monday she’s feeling better — and no longer constantly scratching at her itchy skin.
Officials say they could not say for sure if Kina’s new liver had been transported on Intermountain’s new Cessna Citation CJ4. But young patients like 12-year-old Kina, they said, will benefit often from the new service.
“She‘s done great. There have been no complications,” Jennifer Jewkes said Monday of her daughter. “We‘re very blessed and grateful.”
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