STARS Air Ambulance flew a record number of missions in 2017 throughout Manitoba.

Ray Rempel is a flight paramedic and clinical operations manager for the STARS base in Winnipeg. He said since their start in Manitoba in 2011, 2017 saw the highest number of missions for STARS, at 696. That is up from 619 missions in 2016.

Rempel said there was an increase in the number of missions to almost every region they cover in the province.

Of the total missions, Rempel said 90 were flown to the Winkler/Morden area of the south-central area region. Rempel said that breaks down to 36 scene calls and 54 inter-facility transfers. Of those inter-facility transfers, he noted 30 came from the Boundary Trails Health Centre.

2017 also saw the first full year of the helipad at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre, which Rempel said made a huge difference. He said it significantly cut down the time for them to return to service after flying a mission.

He noted even with the higher number of missions, operations ran fairly smoothly.

Rempel noted milestones were also reached within their foundation in 2017 with some significant donors and third party events supporting their work. Rempel said a lot of those donor dollars came from the "great people" in the Pembina Valley region.

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