At the annual LifeFlight Toowoomba Ball on 16 July, IOR Rural became the second IOR business unit to join a group of southern Queenslanders fuelling LifeFlight’s missions and saving more Queensland lives.
On average, LifeFlight Helicopters burn more than $550 of fuel, every hour they are in the air. Without fuel, there is no mission and with rising fuel prices globally, LifeFlight has anticipated its fuel procurement costs to increase by $1 million over the next 12 months.
Funds from IOR Rural’s Fuelies Program membership, in combination with the group’s existing Fuelie support, will go directly to funding almost 22 hours of flight per annum.
The Toowoomba base is the busiest across LifeFlight’s operations in Queensland an IOR Rural General Manager, Peter Hart, said that he knows family and friends who have had their lives saved by the LifeFlight service in the region.
“My wife, Georgie, and I have lived in Toowoomba all our lives and on so many occasions we have heard or seen a LifeFlight helicopter fly overhead, on its way to save someone in our community.
“LifeFlight is an essential service that is made possible through the support of the community and we’re proud to get behind our local crews and the community by becoming a Fuelie,” said Mr Hart.
IOR has been supporting RACQ LifeFlight Rescue since 2006, when the group joined forces with 11 other businesses to fund the service’s operations in Toowoomba. IOR Managing Director, Stewart Morland, is a Non-Executive Director on the LifeFlight Australia Board of Directors and Non-Executive Chairman of the LifeFlight Foundation Board of Directors.
