FRASER, Colo. — Finding emergency healthcare in the mountains can be a real challenge, from far distances to heavy traffic, made even worse by snow and wintry conditions.
Louise and Graham Powers have experienced it firsthand — many times — over their more than three decades in Fraser.
"We were pretty active. As a consequence, we crashed occasionally," Louise joked. "So we ended up at Middle Park a number of times."
The nearest emergency room is located at Middle Park Health's Granby campus.
"That is a good 25 to 30 minutes. Throw in some winter weather traffic, that's a good distance," Middle Park Health CEO Jason Cleckler said. "Sometimes, people would load up over Berthoud Pass down to Denver."
According to Grand County EMS, in certain instances, taking patients from the high country down to St. Anthony Hospital in Denver was the fastest option. On Tuesday, the ribbon was cut at a new medical campus that's hoping to change that.
"[It's] right on the border of Fraser and Winter Park. It's a 30,000 square foot facility focused on emergent and urgent care," said Cleckler.
When the full-service emergency room is up and running in July, response times will be a lot shorter.
"It'll be a pretty quick trip from the resort, which will be great," said Austin Wingate, chief of Grand County EMS. "It'll allow that ambulance to get back into service sooner for additional calls."
With an on-site helipad, any transfers to Denver hospitals will be able to skip Interstate 70 traffic in an emergency.
"The sooner we can get them to physician-level care, advanced imaging, and the additional care that a doctor can provide in the ER, the better it is for the patient," said Wingate.
It's a solution the surrounding rural mountain communities have been hoping for for years. Several local donors, including the Powers, were part of making the Fraser campus a reality.
"We've raised our family here," Graham told Scripps News Denver. "For the most part, nobody has been badly hurt, and we want to be able to pay it forward, that capability, for young families."
"Not just young families, us retirees!" Louise playfully added.
The medical campus sits at 31 Telemark Drive in Fraser.
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