Flying to the rescue at a moment’s notice
IN the final part of a week feature on the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, View reporter PAUL CROMPTON talks to the pilots and paramedics who respond to thousands of call outs each year.
The Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance crew are resting on brown leather sofas, the kettle is starting to boil and the television is switched to a channel no one is really watching.
Apart from their overalls and the model helicopters adorning the shelves the room looks like any other new-build studio flat – then the phone rings, and quickly the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.
A homemade wall chart utilising a plastic toy helicopter and string is checked to see how far in time and nautical air miles the “job” is. The second paramedic gathers together a collection of cutting-edge emergency medical equipment; the pilot has already started the engines; the first paramedic, who took the call, is plotting the route to the accident.
Aircrew Paramedic Jon Penny said: “When we get a shout to a job we get the basic details, type of incident and where it is by a six figure grid reference.
“The pilot and the first paramedic get to the helicopter. Then the second paramedic walks out to it, then we get a quick brief and the pilot goes through the pre-flight checks. This all takes about a minute.
“The first paramedic becomes the flight navigator. At anyone time there is about five or six things going on as well as discussions on what’s happened, what hospital to go to and the treatment needed.
“We re not always the first on scene. It’s not often we are there first so we talk directly to the land crews to make sure the landing is clear and they give us up-to-date reports on the patient which determines if the air ambulance lands.
“We try to get as many up-dates as we can, the more critical the incident the more we get. If it’s on the coast or where there isn’t anyone we might just get one call. So sometime we land and take it as we see it.”
This happens three to four times a day on average in Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, however during the summer months they can be called up to eight or nine times a day.
Approximately once or twice a month the charity run service for the people of Dorset and Somerset get a call to a really critical situation. It’s a service, which more often than not means the difference between someone surviving that critical situation or dying.
One pilot and two paramedics work every day and go out on all shouts during their morning to dusk shift. The helicopter cannot run past those hours due to the nature of the service, which is legally entitled to land anywhere. The helicopter will often circle the landing spot a couple of times to “recce” the area to ensure it is safe to land. Past dusk the possibility of hitting power-lines and other obstacles become a very real threat as visibility decreases.
“I was paramedic on the road and there are different routes you can go such as become a Clinical Support Officer, or one of the options was to become an air crew paramedic,” said Jon, who has been a paramedic with the air ambulance for three years and nine years in total with the NHS.
“I choose that because the air crew get a lot of exposure to the real jobs; quite regularly, we’re involved in an awful lot of trauma incident, and I thought that was the one for me. I love the job I do. The harder the job the more I get out of it.”
On any given day the crew will attend anything from heart attacks to explosions and road traffic accidents which is where the serious injuries occur and the air ambulance becomes a vital tool in saving the critically ill.
Specialist hospitals save lives but the speed and access to victims afforded by the air ambulance in transporting patients to those hospitals, especially in coastal and road accidents, is key to the services 10 years of success.
Jon explains many of the roads in the two counties are single vehicle width, so the helicopter benefits from its ability to “drop” into the field next to the road, whereas a road ambulance could be caught up in traffic, which slows it down.
The charity provides the paramedics with everything they need, including training beyond that required by land based paramedics and cutting edge technology. One devise, the Intro Ostrius, was perfected during the middle-eastern conflict.
Jon said: “We use these devises on critically ill patients when, more often than not the land crews cannot gain intravenous access, because these are poorly people. The IO is a last ditch piece of equipment and something’s going really wrong if we need it. And that’s just one piece of equipment, we’ve got lots.
“The good thing with the air ambulance is we have two paramedics whereas a land ambulance has one driver and one paramedic. Both of us might have to work fairly hard with a critically ill patient, so we don’t take two patients because it’s not fair. In the case of a road traffic accident where there is three or four people in each car that obviously delegates the ambulance service in the area because there is not an ambulance per person. So what we can do is shuttle round and take the critically ill person to hospital and go back for more.”
Currently two pilots work on a rolling rota of five days on and five days off, but if both are on holiday a registered pilot is brought in for the day or week to fly the helicopter.
One of the regular pilots, Phil Merritt, always wanted to the job and previously spent 19 years flying a number of different types of helicopters for the Royal Air Force.
Then when he left the forces he thought of the possible jobs he might apply for, the role and operation of air ambulances seemed the most interesting and most suitable for him, given his previous experience.
Now employed by Bond Air Services, he says he hasn’t looked back since starting the “immensely satisfying, challenging and enjoyable” job.
He explains the key role the helicopter plays is in allowing the service to take a patient from the scene of the incident to the most appropriate hospital very quickly.
“This means that the patient will start to receive the required definitive care sooner than might otherwise have been the case,” he said. “Their pain can be managed more quickly and specialist medical care provided which will allow a speedier recovery.
“The speed of the helicopter can reduce the time that the patient is in pain and can, by bringing them to hospital quickly, save lives.
“This means that even in the most dire of situations people are very pleased to see us and are appreciative of our assistance.”
“It gives me great job satisfaction and pleasure in being able to help people who are hurt or unwell by bringing the medical experts to them.”
The Air Ambulance will be celebrating their 10th anniversary on Saturday, June 12th.
For more information on the service visit www.dorsetandsomersetairambulance.org.uk
PICTURE: Former Royal Air Force pilot Phil Merriot enjoys the challenges faced everyday working for Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance
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