Question about Aeromedical Experience

[DropkickMurphy]

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OK, this is getting fairly ridiculous. Air medical transport is a relatively small field. If you have a crash, it's dramatic and has the potential to skew small ns. I could put the same spin on the danger of Ned the paramedic flooring it 60 mph down residential streets for a 104 year old in cardiac arrest.

Also, not all helicopter services are the same. You would have to compare type of helicopter, number of pilots, type of area (I would guess that doing mountain rescue would increase danger).

Lastly, the helicopter does not just give "a fast ride" to the trauma center. Critical care starts in the field. Airways are secured with paralytics, chest tubes are placed, trauma lines are placed, blood is given, I can do a FAST while we're starting resuscitation.

Can a system like this be abused? Frequently. Can this system make a difference in select critical patients? I don't have any doubt.

mike

Not necessarily agreeing with those statistics, I was just stating what I read somewhere.

 

[waterski232002]

I believe there was a study done that showed if you work as a flight nurse for a certain number of years (I believe it was 10 or 15, maybe 20, but I am not certain) that you're chances of being in a "significant incident" (read as: euphemism for 'crashing') is something on the order of 45%.

This is total BS! We have 10 flight nurses at UofC and 7 of them have been here for >10 years (2 for approx 20 yrs). You're saying that about half of these people should have been in a crash by now????

And extrapolating things further... if you add the residents to the picture (because most crews are nurse nurse configurations, and ours is a nurse md configuration), than you're saying that since we've been in service for about 25 years, over half of our original crew should have been in an crash by now as well.

IMO you guys are really just talking out of your a$$ at this point.

 

[Apollyon]

The president of my group was in a helicopter crash (without injuries) 21 years ago - one engine failed over water, and the pilot over-wound the other to make it to land. The helicopter engines were total losses x2, but no one was injured.

One helicopter in central NY crashed in 1996 or so after taking a flight in foul weather that had already been declined by another service (for a non-critical patient). Pilot, medic, and patient were killed.

At Duke in the 1980's, a ship was being transported to Pittsburgh for maintenance when it crashed, killing the pilot (who was the only one on board).

That is my only anecdotal evidence. Even though I think that helicopter transport is mostly a total waste, I don't think ~1/2 are getting into crashes.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

I think it has something to do with the fact that a lot of the less reputable helicopter services out there (*cough* AirEvac *cough*) have dismal safety records, and that contributes to a large percentage of the fatality accidents annually. The majority of university affiliated programs and the MSP programs seem to have very decent safety records, but this is likely due to better maintainence and pilot training- not to mention they are less likely to fly in marginal conditions because they aren't out solely to turn a profit.

But as I said, I have no claim to the validity of that statistic because if you know what you're doing with statistics (and depending on how you define inclusion or exclusion of things) you can make the stats say almost anything.

 

[MedWiz]

Agreed wholeheartedly.

actually, you have to keep the total picture in mind: if you do some research, you'll find that helicopters in general are said to be THE ONLY form of transportation that has saved many more lives than it has taken, regardless of the occassionally questionable safety record of helicopter rescue aircraft in particular.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

actually, you have to keep the total picture in mind: if you do some research, you'll find that helicopters in general are said to be THE ONLY form of transportation that has saved many more lives than it has taken, regardless of the occassionally questionable safety record of helicopter rescue aircraft in particular.

If you included war wounded yes, but we are speaking regarding civilian usage here......