Emergency!

The Edge of the Wilderness area in northern Minnesota may be remote, but the emergency services are designed to reach even snowmobilers on a winter trail in the woods or a party fishing on a forested lake.

The Bigfork Ambulance Service Association (BASA) serves the Bigfork area with two ambulances and specialized equipment such as a covered rescue stretcher that can be towed by an ATV or snowmobile. Two trained emergency medical technician (EMT) members are always within five minutes of the ambulance building. BASA is augmented with equipment from the Bigfork Volunteer Fire Department.

Once at Bigfork Valley, emergency services are provided by a physician in a new Emergency Department with two trauma rooms and two treatment rooms. The department is adjacent to the inpatient care area and centrally located to the lab, imaging and surgical departments.

Bigfork Valley also has a permanent decontamination room for incidents where a person is exposed to a hazardous external chemical. The decontamination room allows for a series of contained water washes through a separate entrance to the emergency room.

If medical staff feels that the patient needs to be transported to a large urban hospital for care, it has a helipad serviced by three air ambulance services; Luke’s One, St. Mary’s Lifeflight and North Memorial Air Care.

BASA is dispatched by the Itasca Country Sheriff’s Department 911 service.