While no decision has been made, several Frisco City Council members at the June 18 meeting said if CareFlite is willing to leave a helicopter in Frisco, the council would like the service to stay at the Cotton Gin base rather than relocate.

CareFlite approached the Frisco Fire Department in early May with a proposal to move the Frisco helicopter to Sherman because of declining calls in Frisco throughout the last few years.

Fire Chief Mark Piland told the council the number of calls has decreased since Medical Center Plano's Level II trauma center opened in 2011. He said it's now safer and easier to transport many patients who would have been flown to Baylor or Parkland hospitals by ground to Medical Center Plano.

Piland said CareFlite would like to leave Frisco to better serve the public in the Sherman area, but in the interest of continuing a long-term working relationship with the city, would keep the helicopter service in Frisco if asked.

Frisco staff members recommended the city agree to CareFlite leaving because current calls for service do not support maintaining operations at the Cotton Gin base. In all, there were 20 emergency air transports in 2012, and four to date in 2013.

A letter to the Piland from Captain Hugh Mason, CareFlite's vice president and director of flight operations, states CareFlite would like to move the Frisco helicopter to Sherman in mid-July.

Mason said CareFlite would not leave unless two conditions were met, including Careflite has the right to refuse coming back if the city were to decide to place a helicopter in Frisco in the future. The second condition is that CareFlite is able to move its fuel tank from the Frisco base.

The fire chief said the Frisco base helicopter is often used to fill in from other CareFlite bases when needed and in the future would most likely be used for significant training time for CareFlite pilots. Both would cut down on the number of hours the helicopter would be available for use in Frisco emergencies.

Several council members said this is a decision CareFlite should make based on its own needs as a business. If the city is given an option, several councilmen said they will choose to have the helicopter stay, even if it is only minimally available for use in Frisco emergencies.

"They have been great community partners," said councilman Scott Johnson. "If we are being asked to make a decision about what we want, I'm going to side with our citizens and have them stay here."

Frisco Mayor Maher Maso said the council needs more information and "it's too simplistic" to make a decision yet.

"We want to provide the best service and opportunity to save lives that we can," Maso said.

Response time data from the city shows a call answered at Dallas Parkway and U.S. 380 would take CareFlite 8 1/2 minutes to land at the scene from the Cotton Gin base. It would take CareFlite 11 minutes to the same scene from its Denton base and 17 minutes from the Dallas base.

Piland said that time difference is an acceptable difference in response time for air transport of child and adult patients if CareFlite were to vacate the Cotton Gin base.