The UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center Life Flight air ambulance made an emergency landing in Hamilton County with everybody on board escaping injury early Thursday morning. A bird collided with the helicopter’s windshield, breaking the glass.

STRATFORD — The crew of a Fort Dodge-based medical helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing Thursday morning after it collided with a bird while returning to town.

The UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center Life Flight air ambulance landed in Hamilton County with everybody on board escaping injury.

According to Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Timmons, dispatchers in Hamilton County received a call at 1:50 a.m. from the flight’s crew saying they had to make an emergency landing after it hit a bird while returning from a patient transfer in Iowa City.

The collision with the bird broke out the helicopter’s windshield, Timmons said.

Life Flight was able to land safely north of Stratford in the 3500 mile of Stagecoach Road in a farm field.

Amy Varcoe, a media relations representative for UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, said reports of birds have been common lately from flight crews.

“There have been a lot of birds migrating right now,” she said. “They’ve seen them, but this one actually hit the windshield.”

Although the helicopter was damaged, there will be no service interruptions for the hospital.

“We already have a spare up there,” she said. “We will not be out of commission or not be fielding calls.”

While Varcoe didn’t know when exactly the damaged Life Flight would be repaired, she stressed that service would remain the same.

But she added that she’s most happy that all three crew members on board survived without getting hurt.

“Our crew is safe, which is the most important thing, and there were no patients on board,” she said. “And they wanted to say thank you for law enforcement for picking them up and getting them back to Trinity. Everybody was safe and I think that’s the main goal.”