Three Die in Nevada Medevac Crash
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- An air ambulance helicopter crashed en route to pick up a patient early Saturday, killing three people.
The Mercy Air Bell 222 helicopter went down about six miles into California near Interstate 15, the National Transportation and Safety Board and Mercy Air said.
The pilot, a flight nurse and paramedic were killed. No patients were aboard.
Names of the victims were not immediately released, though Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey identified the paramedic as her daughter, Kalaya Jarbsunthie, 31.
``She was a special person, and we are completely devastated by this,'' Kincaid-Chauncey said in a statement.
The helicopter, based in Pahrump, 60 miles west of Las Vegas, was en route to a traffic accident in Baker, Calif., said Lee Haney, spokeswoman for Fontana, Calif.-based Mercy Air.
Mercy Air operates 11 helicopters from nine bases between southern Nevada and California, Haney said. This was the company's first accident since Mercy Air began operations in 1988, she said.
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