June 5, 2024
OLEAN — As the Olean base of operations since June 1999, the Louis A. Magnano Olean General Hospital Mercy Flight Center, 625 Main St., will celebrate its 25th anniversary by inviting all to learn about Mercy Flight’s nonprofit mission and meet with various groups that also serve the community.
The Olean Police Department will be on hand, and the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit will provide demonstrations. Area fire departments will also give demonstrations.
Ardent Solutions of Wellsville will be on hand to perform child safety seat checks. Other activities include music from DJ Squirrel, a children’s craft program presented by Home Depot, Trappers chicken barbecue dinners, a basket raffle and more.
Mercy Flight built the current hangar site adjacent to Olean General Hospital in 1998. The site was the first built by Mercy Flight outside of the Buffalo area. The current helicopter based in Olean, a Bell 429, joined the fleet in Olean in 2018, replacing the circa 1980 BK-117 which was the original helicopter for the site.
Mercy Flight was the vision of its late founder, Douglas H. Baker, and completed its first mission Sept. 19, 1981. Since then, Mercy Flight has safely completed more than 31,000 air patient missions, including on-scene emergencies and inter-facility hospital transfers throughout Western New York and beyond.