The future Telluride Medical Center to be constructed in Mountain Village will have a helipad after Mountain Village officials gave the project a green light Thursday.

A conditional use permit for the designated helicopter landing zone was approved by both the Mountain Village Design Review Board and the Mountain Village Town Council without opposition after a lengthy morning discussion.

“We have a helipad,” Mountain Village Mayor Dan Jansen proclaimed after the vote. The pad will be constructed on the top deck of the parking garage and will be connected to the future hospital, allowing for efficient transfer of critical care patients to air transport that can take them to major hospitals.

“I personally cannot fathom building the new medical center to take care of our current and future health care needs of this community without having a helipad,” said Dr. Diana Koelliker, the Medical Director of Emergency and Trauma Services at the Telluride Medical Center.

In a presentation to council members and town staff before the vote, Koelliker outlined how critical care patients — those suffering from strokes, heart attacks, spinal cord injuries, head injuries and similar medical conditions — are currently handled in the existing Telluride facility and would be handled in any rural health care facility that does not have immediate access to life flights.

She used the example of a 57-year-old male patient who was injured in a skiing accident in December. That patient slammed into a tree on the slopes and suffered internal bleeding stemming from a ruptured spleen. In that case, each minute mattered to the patient’s health, and it took multiple gurney transfers and upwards of 40 minutes for the patient to be transferred to a life flight. By the time he arrived at a major hospital, he was “as near to dead as you can be,” Koelliker said. The man survived and recovered.

“Minutes matter and we need to get these critically ill patients to a higher level of care quickly,” she said.

Mountain Village resident Chantry Dasaro spoke in support of the helipad, saying that she had to take a life flight last year and she was grateful for the quick and thorough care in the face of a possibly life-threatening situation.

Another Mountain Village resident, Brian Kanaga, spoke during public comment and said he was worried about a flight path that could potentially bring helicopters over ski lifts and the gondola line. In response to his concerns, gondola and town staff noted that they were okay with the proposed arrangement and did not notice any movement of lift chairs or threats to equipment during test runs.

Koelliker and other representatives for the Telluride Medical Center noted that there are very few critical care patients that require helicopter evacuation per year. Based on modeling from previous years, a life flight helicopter would be required only once every 33 days.

“My view is this is a bit of an empathy type of situation. The person on that helicopter is having probably the worst day of their life and can we all tolerate just a little inconvenience to try to help that person out,” Jansen said.