Joe Imel/Daily News Air Evac pilot Tim Sorreles, of Clarksville, show off the cockpit of a Bell 206 Jet Ranger Friday to Jacob Payne, 6, and Gavin Rowe, 7. The Air Evac Lifeteam hosted an open house to show off their regional maintenance facility at the Bowling Green/Warren County Regional Airport Friday.

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Last year, the Bowling Green Air Evac Lifeteam crew flew Nick Satterly to safety after his involvement in an ATV accident.

Friday, Satterly was among the several dozen people who helped dedicate Air Evac’s new maintenance facility at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport.

A rural air ambulance provider operating 75

helicopter bases in 12 states, Air Evac opened a base in Bowling Green in 2006. The Bowling Green operation serves Warren and its surrounding counties, along with portions of Hart and Breckinridge counties.

The maintenance facility, located in a hangar off Airway Court and featuring living quarters for the crew, opened for business last month and will be servicing Air Evac helicopters from the company’s five Kentucky bases and the base in Lafayette, Tenn.

“We can do rapid transport for people with life-threatening or limb-threatening injuries,” said Jason Ingram, Air Evac Lifeteam area manager for the Bowling Green base.

Before the regional maintenance facility opened, a facility in Tennessee performed regular maintenance on the Bowling Green Air Evac helicopter, putting it out of service for as much as 24 hours at a time, according to paramedic Shannon Embry.

With maintenance operations for the region centered in Bowling Green, and with a repair crew based at the facility on call at all times, Air Evac helicopters will not spend as many hours in maintenance, Embry said.

The company focuses especially on patients in isolated rural settings who need emergency medical care and for whom it would be faster and more convenient to transport by air.

Air Evac crews consist of a pilot, registered nurse and paramedic and are on call 24 hours. Nurses and paramedics work 24-hour shifts, and pilots fly 12-hour shifts every other week.

It was an Air Evac helicopter that may have helped Satterly recover from multiple injuries he suffered in an ATV accident in the Gott area in March 2007.

Satterly suffered a broken femur, several cracked ribs and pelvic and facial injuries.

Aside from some small scars on the now 14-year-old Satterly’s face, he appears to have made a full recovery, though he has an appointment to have some teeth crowned that were damaged in the accident.

“I’m still working at it,” Satterly, who will be a freshman at Greenwood High School, said of the recovery process.

Though his accident occurred in a relatively rural part of the county, Satterly was originally transported to The Medical Center, according to his father, John Satterly.

When the severity of his injuries was determined, Nick Satterly was flown by Air Evac to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

“I wasn’t even out of the (Medical Center) parking lot when I got the call that Nick was being flown down to Vandy,” John Satterly said. “He got down there in less than 20 minutes. It’s definitely reassuring to know that we have this kind of service.”

Regional airport manager Rob Barnett said the company signed a 5-year lease agreement with the airport board to have its maintenance facility in a hangar on which construction was completed earlier this year.

Barnett said the company benefits the region, giving rural residents quick access to high-quality emergency care. The airport also benefits from an economic standpoint by having Air Evac based there, via fuel purchases and operating expenses, Barnett said.

“This company is one of our biggest assets,” Barnett said. “Eighty percent of Air Evac’s employees who work here don’t live here, so by commuting, they’re also contributing to the local economy here.”