Each year over 1,000 lives saved thanks to air ambulance service

— In a big city, someone constantly needs urgent medical help. In cases of emergency such aid is provided by the urban disaster medicine service, which is coordinated by our centre. To urgently transport patients to hospitals, we use ambulances and air ambulances, which do not have to put up with traffic jams and traffic lights. It takes about seven minutes to fly to any place within the Moscow Ring Road using a medical helicopter and some 10-15 minutes to get from the city centre to the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative areas. During emergencies, our centre becomes the main medical city headquarters. The headquarters coordinates all medical organisations in the city, from emergency blood transfusion stations to pharmacies. Now our service has three aircrafts.

Inside resuscitation helicopter

These are BK-117 C-2 helicopters from the Moscow Aviation Centre, which were purchased by the city in 2016 for the Scientific and Practical Centre of Emergency Medical Aid of the Moscow Healthcare Department. They are flown by very experienced, as a rule, former military pilots. Each helicopter is equipped with the most modern medical equipment. For example, there are Corpuls monitors/defibrillators for cardiac massage. They can be used directly during the flight, since the floor of the helicopters is dielectric. It neutralises the electrical charges from the device. The aircraft has cubicles (devices for transporting seriously ill and premature babies. — Mos.ru.), perfusors (automatic dosage dispensers) and other devices for emergency resuscitation of patients.

The stock of the medicine and dressings is intended for 25 people. That is, doctors can land at the scene in load bearing vests and assist not one but several injured people at once. Each helicopter can simultaneously evacuate up to three patients with minor injuries or up to two patients in a serious condition. Since 1 June 2018, the helicopter service operates 24/7. In one shift, the aviation medical team can perform from two to 10 flights.

Flying high and walking tall: One day at the Moscow Aviation Centre Fire safety in Moscow and the Moscow Region to be supported with helicopters

Composition of the aviation medical team

In total, the centre’s staff includes 130 experienced and highly professional doctors. All of them have been trained at the Russian Centre for Disaster Medicine and have certificates and diplomas confirming their right to work in the aeromedical team.

One team consists of a doctor and a medical assistant. It includes certified anaesthesiologists and resuscitators with ground ambulance experience and in-patient resuscitation units. These doctors have the highest qualifications with at least 10 years of experience.

They have not only medical knowledge but also organisation skills too. That is, they can interact with other emergency services of the city and control the provision of aid at the scene. Upon arrival, doctors assess the situation, determine whether additional forces will be needed and transfer data to the centre dispatchers, who, if necessary, send reinforcements.

When an air ambulance is called

Our dispatch centre workers receive up to 100 calls from operational services of the city per day. Depending on the condition and number of victims, we send resuscitation vehicles or helicopters (or both) to the scene of an accident. Aviation is used to urgently evacuate a patient to hospital when every second literally counts. This happens, for example, in case of severe injuries, wounds, heart attacks and strokes.

Also, the air ambulance service is called if a child is seriously injured. For example, there was a case when a teenager fell from the 16^th floor of a block of flats. Within a few minutes he was taken by helicopter to the Research Institute of Emergency Pediatric Surgery and Traumatology. Thanks to the efficiency of our doctors, the boy survived, and the consequences of his injuries were minimal.

Air ambulances also help in transporting fire casualties to hospitals. When people get carbon monoxide poisoning, every second counts. There was a case when people were trapped in a cold shop where a fire occurred. Rescuers managed to get them out, but they needed urgent help. We carried extremely heavy patients by three helicopters to the Sklifosovsky Emergency Research Institute; they all recovered. These are isolated examples. To show the scale of the work of air ambulance doctors, I can say that over the past year, our doctors rescued more than a thousand people.

Duty helipads

Medical helicopters are on duty at three different places in the city. One helipad is located at Filatov City Clinical Hospital No 15 (23 Veshnyakovskaya Street). The second one is located at the Yudin City Clinical Hospital (4 Kolomensky Proyezd). The third one is at the Ostafyevo Airport in the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative areas, not far from Shcherbinka.

We evacuate the injured to those hospitals and clinics that treat the necessary type of injuries and are located near the scene. For example, patients with heart attacks and strokes are most often delivered to hospitals within the city’s stroke network. The Sklifosovsky Emergency Research Institute, Filatov City Clinical Hospital No 15 and the Yudin City Clinical Hospital have their own helipads. Children are taken to the Bashlyayeva Hospital (28 Geroyev-Panfilovtsev Street), Research Institute of Emergency Pediatric Surgery and Traumatology (22 Bolshaya Polyanka Street), as well as to Speransky City Clinical Hospital No 9 (16 Leningradsky Prospekt, Bldg. 1). In total, there are 10 helicopter pads in Moscow based at major medical centres. Also, another 21 ground pads are equipped in the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative areas (in Shchapovo, Voronovo, Kiyevsky, Vasyunino and others). In winter, all of the pads are regularly cleared of snow.

Now the geography of flights of medical helicopters is not limited to the places of their permanent deployment. The one that is free at any given moment is sent to the call. But in the future, we plan to divide the areas of responsibility of each helicopter. We also plan to launch soon round-the-clock duty of a medical helicopter at the Bashlyayeva Children’s City Clinical Hospital.