Emergency Air Ambulance: Swifter, Safer, Well Equipped and Responsible Method of Airlifting the Critical Patients

Air ambulance is a comprehensive term denoting the use of transportation methods by air. It can involve the use of helicopter or aero planes to shift and move critical patients from the scene of accident to either a proper hospital or a make shift one where emergency medical services are conducted. It is the responsibility of the then medical officer to determine whether the patient is as critical as such as to require emergency air services because at the end of the day the air services are costly. While uplifting the patients the weather conditions and the safety of the service team should also be taken into account. An air ambulance has to be outfitted specially with all the possible equipment and medicines so as to serve the patients. Air ambulance can be of two types, one in which medical staff is present to give proper assistance during the journey and other in which only patients are shifted from one place to another without proper medical assistance. The mortality rate of the critically injured patient reduces at once from sixty percent to just ten percent at a go if they are air lifted.

Even during the World War 1 air transport was used to lift and shift the important patients but air transport facilities expanded at a higher level during the Vietnam War. Today the use of Emergency Air Ambulance has advanced dramatically as people have become more conscious and forward thinking. The services of air ambulance have become quite popular under strenuous conditions because of:

• ·         They have proved to be very reliable in difficult situations.
• ·         They are dependable and quiet.
• ·         They have proved to be very comfortable for the patients.
• ·         They save a lot of time.

The air ambulance aircrafts have much equipment to handle emergency situation and some of them are: 

• ·         A stretcher on board
• ·         Blankets, linens and pillows and that too cleaned at regular intervals
• ·         Medicine box
• ·         Cuffs for measuring the blood pressure of patients
• ·         Pulse oximeter
• ·         Adequate supply of oxygen
• ·         Cardiac monitors

Besides military civilians have also set up air medical servicesand some of the most famous ones are:

• ·         Royal Flying Doctor Services established in the year 1928 in the outback of Australia.
• ·         First civil air ambulance in Africa in the year 1934 by Marie Marvingt.
• ·         Highlands and Islands Medical Services in the year 1936 for the remote corners of Scotland.
• ·         Schaefer ambulance services in the year 1947 in Los Angeles by J Walter Schaefer

As the medical services by air began to gain momentum many civil helicopters as air ambulance started coming into existence with more advanced facilities and technology. On the first of November in the year1970 the helicopter Christoph 1 was launched as a permanent air ambulance and this concept gained momentum and later many more such air ambulances were launched.