Last week, the Seattle subreddit dredged up a long-time drama between the Laurelhurst neighborhood and Seattle Children’s Hospital about its helicopters.
Seattle Children’s is the go-to specialized pediatric care center for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. When children from near and far away need urgent treatment, they’ll get swooped up by a helicopter and taken to Seattle Children’s. This, the affluent North Seattle neighborhood will tell you, is quite the nuisance.
Such a nuisance that a neighborhood group wanted to make sure the hospital wasn’t landing flights on the helipad for non-emergency reasons, according to meeting minutes from 2021. “There needs to be a medical justification form for each flight (one was a broken leg for example),” said one member. In the six years of documented meetings The Stranger looked at, they had a lot more to say.
If I were one of those patients (or their parent) whose life-saving helicopter ride unfortunately made one of those special people hear a “whup whup whup” in the distance, I’d be writing letters to everyone who complained at that meeting and their next few neighbors in every direction. Might be a coin toss to determine whether the complainer gets the polite or rude version.
Unlikely to be read by them anyway but hopefully some shit-stirring with others nearby would spill over. If Nextdoor is any indication, neighbor drama always sells.
Next Laurelhurst community meeting is set for May 11, 2026.
I think there will be quite a few new faces since this has hit the news again.