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Tue May 1 01:10:20 BST 2007

Of all the chatter about waiting times, efficiency of air transport, ad nauseum, no one has addressed the risk involved as well as cost involved. Let's look at some facts: 

Helicoptor medical transport is very expensive and highly overutilized in the US. (I was a flight nurse for two years at the Detroit Medical Center, '80 - '82, and that is why the program was discontinued). Further, it is dangerous: Crash/fatalities increase 3-fold in the night (lots of nighttime in New Jersy) and 8-fold in bad weather (New Jersey ain't no Key West). NTSB records of EMS helicopter crashes between '83, and '05 revealed 184 occupants died in 182 EMS helicopter crashes. One in four EMS helicopters is likely to crash during 15 years of service. The death rate for EMS flight crew members is 20 times the rate of all U.S. workers.

One last thing: Look at the transport times a little more realistically. It takes 15 minutes to assemble the crew in the best of circumstances and get them on board (civilian practice requires "cold" boarding and disembarkment). It takes at least 5 minutes for the pre-flight check before you can get the rotors turning. Then the flight time (? minutes) then landing - which requires a secured scene. Then you have to shut the thing off, then get out and go to your patient, do what you need to do, then get the patient loaded back on board, redo the pre-flight check, bla-bla. In other words, you don't get one of those things off the ground in 8 minutes from the call; it's more like 20.

Call me a ground rig, I'll take my chances - and possibly save some over-adrenalized flight crew from disaster.

DB

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