New Diamond Point helipad provides first airlift support

By Matthew Nash • April 3, 2019 1:30 am
Contributor Mike Connors snaps a photo of a helicopter readying a transport for a Diamond Point resident who fell from a ladder. Officials with Harborview Medical Center said the man died a day later. Submitted photo
Contributor Mike Connors snaps a photo of a helicopter readying a transport for a Diamond Point resident who fell from a ladder. Officials with Harborview Medical Center said the man died a day later. Submitted photo

The first flight from Diamond Point Airport 2WA1’s new helipad was an especially hard one to see for nearby residents.

Medical officials at Harborview Medical Center confirmed that Dan Murphy, 63, a resident on the 100 block of Lupine Drive near the airport’s runway, died Sunday afternoon after he fell from a ladder the previous afternoon.

Fire Chief Ben Andrews with Clallam County Fire District 3 said Murphy was airlifted to Seattle.

More information on Murphy was not available by press time.

Andrews said a volunteer firefighter was on scene within four minutes and a medical team from the Blyn station was there within 10 minutes followed by a second medical unit from the Sequim station.

The helipad has been an important project for Diamond Point residents.

Last year, members of the Diamond Point Airport Association, or DPAA, sought to improve their makeshift helipad, a 40-foot-by-40-foot mowed space along the airport’s runway.

Kaye Gagnon, a volunteer for the association, said more than 50 members of the airport association began exploring safer options after a miscue during an airlift incident in 2017 to pick up a patient following a nearby car wreck. She said the pilot had difficulty finding the helipad because there wasn’t a lighting system.

Airport association members partnered with Boy Scout Troop 1498 led by Ben Wright to pave the new pad.

Gagnon said in the coming months DPAA members plan to paint the helipad and upgrade it eventually with lights.

She said nearby residents plan to help Murphy’s family in various ways as they deal with their loss.

Diamond Point Airport opened in 1965 with the closest helipads in the City of Sequim next to the Jamestown Family Health Clinic and the Jefferson County International Airport in Port Townsend.

While the airport is private, Gagnon said airport association members have allowed emergency landings at no public expense for more than 50 years to both Clallam and Jefferson counties. The airport is also part of Clallam County’s Disaster Airlift Response Team (DART).

For more information on Diamond Point Airport 2WA1, visit www.2wa1.com.