Vanderbilt LifeFlight held an open house earlier this month as it not only blessed a new helicopter, but also reunited with a patient.

The open house was held at Vanderbilt Life-Flight 2’s hangar at the Tullahoma Airport on Friday, May 1, where attendees got the rare chance to see the inside of the hangar and meet the crew. Joe Cobble, the base lead at LifeFlight 2, welcomed everyone and said it’s been his pleasure to be able to work sideby- side with some of the most fantastic employees, customers and partners that one could imagine. He then gave a brief history of LifeFlight 2, which was established in Tullahoma in 2000, is the second aircraft in the Vanderbilt LifeFlight fleet, and has been serving the South Central Tennessee and North Alabama region since its establishment.

“We are owned and operated by Vanderbilt Health System, and we are one of the only nonprofit flight services in the state of Tennessee,” Cobble said. “We’re very proud of that.”

Per Cobble, Vanderbilt LifeFlight on average flies out 550 flights a year from its base, helping hundreds of critically ill and injured adults and children with a staff of 18 trained in different disciplines, including critical care paramedics, registered nurses, nurse practitioners and emergency physicians.

“That’s a very busy base,” he said. “That’s a lot of help we provide from this base right here.”

Also on hand are two full-time maintainers who keep the aircraft safe and ready to respond to the call, and four full-time pilots who have high flight hours in their respective careers.

“We cover hundreds of square miles from here. Our flight times range anywhere from patients being brought here directly to the base, to us responding to the scene to an outlying hospital,” Cobble said, noting the average flight times are between 30 and 45 minutes. “We’re also providing a higher level of care to these patients. We are only able to provide this high level of care by working closely with EMS, fire, police, hospitals and most importantly, the community.”

Cobble praised the community for supporting the base since its inception and said they are very proud of the relationship with Coffee County and the surrounding counties.

“Thank you for that support,” Cobble said. “We hope it continues, and if there’s anything we can do to help you, please let us know. “

Fire Marshal Nick Kimbro spoke next and said it was an honor to be present for the open house and dedication of the new helicopter, as having the Vanderbilt LifeFlight based in Tullahoma was a benefit to the citizens and community.

“It’s a critical link in a coordinated system of emergency response that this community depends on,” Kimbro said. “When that system comes together and works in the way that it’s designed to, lives are saved.”

Kimbro then shared the story of how local emergency services responded to a vehicle fire on Jan. 19, 2025, on Normandy Road, where people were trapped inside.

“In those moments, training, coordination, and instinct take over for the professionals in our emergency services community,” Kimbro stated. “Fire, EMS, law enforcement, and even good samaritan bystanders worked together to extricate the patients, begin care and extinguish the fire under extreme conditions.”

In attendance for the open house and dedication was one of the patients, Deacon Wilson, who suffered burns that covered over 80 percent of his body and was in critical condition when he left the scene to be treated.

“He wasn’t alone,” Kimbro said. “From the roadside to the ambulance to the waiting LifeFlight crew to the professionals at the Vanderbilt Burn Center, every step of that journey was connected by professionals who knew exactly what to do and when to do it. And because of that, we’re able to celebrate Deacon today. Not just as a survivor, but as living proof of what a coordinated emergency response system can do when it’s working at as high as possible level.”

Kimbro would then call up all first responders who were on duty that day to join him and Wilson as EMS personnel rarely see the outcome of patients they help at the scene.

“What we are dedicating here today is not just an aircraft, it’s a promise,” he said. “It’s a promise that when the worst day happens, this community is not relying on luck, it’s relying on a system, a system of trained professionals working together across agencies, disciplines, with one mission: to give people like Deacon a chance to overcome their most dire moments to join us again.”

Mayor Lynn Sebourn briefly addressed attendees and praised the emergency workers for what they do, as he shared that any time there’s talk of budgets and how to pay for certain things, the emergency personnel said if they are needed, they go and worry about the money later.

“This young man sitting here today is evidence that that works, and our people care, and it gives me great confidence to know we have people that are willing to work and do these things without thinking, without questioning, without hesitating,” Sebourn said.

Concluding the event was the dedication and blessing of the new helicopter by Medical Affairs Manager Adam McCann. After the dedication, Mc-Cann shared that on the helicopter was a patch honoring Allan Williams, who died on the line of duty in November 2025.