Air ambulance, medical evacuation company coming to Tampa International Airport

TAMPA, Fla. - Jet ICU Air Ambulance broke ground on its new $10.5 million dollar hangar and office complex on the eastern side of Tampa International Airport.

The nearly 33,000 square foot facility will also be home to a state-of-the-art emergency operations center.

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"We’re just really excited to be here, it’s been a monumental project over the last few years dealing with COVID and employees, and availability of everything," said Jared Wayt, the director of emergency medical service for Jet ICU.

Jet ICU has the largest long-range air ambulance fleet on the continent. Its planes are like flying intensive care units.

"Anything they can do in intensive care at a hospital, like at Tampa General Hospital ICU, think that, compacted inside a 10-person private aircraft," Wayt said.

Last summer, Jet ICU flew a 13-year-old boy from Tampa to Chicago for free to have special treatment after battling a brain-eating amoeba.

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Also, in the summer of 2015, the company flew a 22-year-old woman back to Tampa from Cuba after surviving a deadly car crash on the island.

"We’ve been to over 150 countries on six different continents, we’ve performed medical evacuations all over the world, so just as you can get sick at home, heart attack, stroke, trauma incidents, you’re vacationing and the zipline breaks, we’re there," said Wayt.

The new hangar and office complex is expected to be completed by this time next year.