Copper-chopper "um..ah..well is it really an emergency??..."

[skydriller]

Watched last nights copper-chopper show on the telly. It may have been down to the way the show was edited:suspect: , but there is a guy in the middle of nowhere with his leg hanging off, totally un-accessible by road to an ambulance. Chopper turns up & lands and they spend time umming and ahhing about if they can take the poor guy to hospital due to "rules". I for one watched incredulous at this, felt like shouting :

"STOP FECKING ABOUT AND TAKE THE GUY TO HOSPITAL!!! YOU ARE THERE, HIS LEG IS HANGING OFF, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR - GET ON WITH IT!!!" :mad:

In fact there were a few things on the show which made me wonder about the cost effectiveness of some of the taskings.:hmm:

And finally, do you really stand on a helmet to see if its OK??????:eek:

I seem to recall there are some police chopper pilots on here and would be interested to get the inside view, as I dont think last nights programme showed their work in a very favorable light.

Regards, SD..

[wheelbarrow]

Don't wait too long for a reply from Police Pilots. They are probably more embarrassed and annoyed than you are. How does a 10000 hour pilot make a poor desicion on weather and then, blame the crew.

[What Limits]

I know a bit about police aviation in England so I can answer some of your questions.

What I would be most interested to read are fellow rotorheads perceptions about what they think the police aircraft ought to be doing especially with regard to cost effectiveness.

It was clear from the video that the injuries were bad, remeber that you were on scene a long time before the heli. It also clearly states in the Police Aircraft Operations Manual that a CASEVAC is a flight, the purpose of which, is to give immediate assistance to a sick or injured person, in life threatening circumstances. The police observer who turned up and asked the question "Will this person die if they do not go in the helicopter?" was IMHO completely correct in his actions. Well done. :D

I did not see the whole programme so can not comment on the rest.

What I did see was a police air support unit going out catching criminals and preventing crimes from being committed. As far as I am concerned, thats what they should be doing.

[Daft bat]

I agree with the previous thread on Sky coppers, it is down to the editing of the programme. What was a very quick decsion can be edited out with other shots which then looks like a long debate.
If I knew I was on national telly and there was a chance I could drop in the
S--t, I'd make sure the book was followed to the full stop.
I believe the crew had the best intentions for the victim as we all would,However the CAA never seem to understand that in the aftermath.
At least the exploder did not go tech in this edition, however beware of those tight fitting helmets though.

[semirigid rotor]

Please keep in mind that the programme is edited to make it as dramatic as possible to keep the viewers interest. I flew police ops for 6 years (just occasionally now), and TV crews would turn up fairly regularly for 6 months, to try and make a 30 minute programme.
All of police flying is worthwhile IMHO, but it does not make dramatic TV most of the time. Over half my time was spent looking for missing and vunerable persons, and we had a good success rate finding them - but without the helicopter it is very manpower intensive. And where does that manpower come from? Off the streets, so if you want to keep the bobby on the beat, keep the helicopter in the air!

[Three Blades]

Would those that know mind shedding some light on what the 'law' is ?
What is the technical difference between a HEMS and a Police heli (or any other heli in fact) in these Medevac situations ?
Sorry if this is an obvious question
Thanks

[Stiffler's Mum]

This begs the question. Why do the Old Bill PR dept allow the making of these programmes? For undoubtedly there is only ever going to be one out come here.
Even before you've donned your white roll neck, jumped on your helmet and flown into a thunderstorm, the PASU are going to come across as dicks wasting the tax payers hard earned!

[ShyTorque]

Police helicopters do not carry medical staff on board! Although police crews are trained in first aid, it is not their primary role and sometimes it's better to let more highly qualified and experienced medics look after the patient.

Sometimes difficult decisions do have to be made. We were once called to a serious road accident. I had to insist that a particular badly injured accident victim was not loaded onto 'my' police helicopter after all, but taken by road ambulance instead. It made me quite unpopular at the time but it was the correct decision to make. Reason? The ambulance was already on scene, as were two doctors who happened to be driving past and had stopped to help. The patient was undergoing treatment to keep open his airway and also CPR. Once he was in the helicopter, due to space constraints there was no way to reach him to continue the treatment (we had already removed the co-pilot's seat to fit a stretcher in; the aircraft was not designed as a casevac aircraft, it was a police observation fit). In my opinion he would have been put at greater risk than by enduring a road journey.

Things got quite frosty (especially with the fireman who had to carry him back across the field - he was an unusually large patient). Once I explained the situation to the doctors they agreed with me. The patient survived.

[aeromys]

What's the procedure (or not in this case) of closing the doors after the Observers have hover de-planed? Or did the heli then limp back to base with the door open?

[paco]

Three blades:

A Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) flight is for immediate and rapid transportation of medical personnel, supplies (equipment, blood, organs, drugs) or ill or injured persons and anyone else directly involved. An approval is required. The purpose of a casevac is to give immediate assistance to sick or injured people in life threatening circumstances, typically from the scene of an accident.

Having said that, I'm not sure if it helps, but there is a subtle difference :)

Phil

[Three Blades]

Thanks paco and shytorque,
I understand where you are coming from. However if the doctors on the ground (who one assumes must know best) ask you to take the patient why would a law prevent you ? Or is it an ass covering law that stops you potentially saying yes where there is a posibility that the doctors request may not have been correct ?
What would be the case if I 'happened to be passing' in a private twin and was asked to help. (eg accident at a remote hotel where I was for lunch) ?
Please don't get me wrong here. I have much respect for all police and HEMS chopper crew and I fully understand the example that shytorque gave. I am just interested in this preventative law.

[fkelly]

There is no preventative law. It doesn't have to be life or death; police aircraft can move anyone as long as that method of transport is in the patient's best interests "...when no other means of transport is available [or suitable]" The threat to life bit is largely in relation to the discretion to ignore the usual performance/third party risk for landing sites. The "or suitable" bit is where Shytorque correctly assessed that in one case ground transport was in the patient's best interests, though I've lost count of the number of casevacs I've done where the old wartime "is your jouney really necessary" came to mind.

I can't comment on the helmet bit as I only saw the last 20 minutes.

The cabin doors bit.....perhaps a spot of the old Yerkes-Dodson....

[MightyGem]

Police helicopters do not carry medical staff on board!


Not necessarily so. Wiltshire carry a paramedic as part of the crew and I believe that North Wales has just resumed doing the same.


Please keep in mind that the programme is edited to make it as dramatic as possible
That'll be why those two scrotes doing the crosscountry run were caught in the winter(no leaves on trees), and the next job, on the way back to base, was in the summer.

What's the procedure (or not in this case) of closing the doors after the Observers have hover de-planed? Or did the heli then limp back to base with the door open?


Big problem. Our 135 is limited to 60kts with a door open, so we're not going anywhere fast.

[Coconutty]

Wheelbarrow
How does a 10000 hour pilot make a poor desicion on weather and then, blame the crew.
He didn't !
The very experienced pilot was conducting a follow up debriefing / discussion with the other Unit members and, very professionally I thought, he was saying along the lines of, "Even if the pilot is extremely experienced, the Police observers are also part of the crew, and should always be prepared to question any decision or aspect of the flight that may impact on its safety".

This was a very professional follow up to a flight conducted during deteriorating weather conditions, with a common sense reminder of good CRM practice, including the use of a video to get the CRM message across :ok:

A couple of snippets : The Wiltshire aircraft is a combined Police helicopter & Air Ambulance, while South Yorks is purely a Police helicopter.
The MD902 is also limited to 60 knots with the door checked open.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

[Twiddle]

Who funds what when it's both?

And any idea statistically how many concurrent callouts are there in areas where they have a police heli and helimed?

[frostbite]

I believe the essential difference is that police choppers are government funded and medics are supported by donations.

Thus, the medics may have a greater degree of autonomy.

[Revolutionary]

Shytorque, good on you. The back of a helicopter is the absolute worst place to be doing CPR. I'm actually quite surprised the patient survived at all. The survivability rates for people who code on scene (their heart has stopped) are next to zero. We typically wait if they're doing CPR on scene. If some kind of heart rythm is re-established; we'll fly and quick. If not, the patient needs a hearse, not a helicopter.

[[email protected]]

I think the crew did exactly the right thing regarding the casualty - there was no doubt he needed to go to hospital quickly but his injuries seemed limb threatening rather than absolutely life threatening. So with the world watching they made sure that on tape they were seen asking the paramedics the question and receiving the answer that 'Yes he will die if he doesn't go in the helicopter' whether that was strictly true or not. Spot on it's just a shame that the rules don't seem to allow a certain amount of discretion in these matters.

As for the helmet business I'd love to see what the manufacturers have to say about the 'serviceability test! And why did it suddenly not fit after all the flying he had done that day (probably more editing to cram several day's ops into one 'busy shift'.

[handysnaks]

And any idea statistically how many concurrent callouts are there in areas where they have a police heli and helimed?

Very few if any. Police Helicopters only get called if the local helimeds are unavailable.

Also see PAOM Part 1 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP612.PDF)
Section 5, chapter 2 page 1 for the rules, which seem somewhat contradictory but are what we have to work with. It may explain why some of us are reluctant to carry out casevac when it is NOT to safe life!

[handysnaks]

................and another thing. The open door shots were probably filmed on the ground. A lot of the cockpit panel shots were (which would explain why most of them had one engine either off or at idle!!!):ugh:

[Daft bat]

What is the technical difference between a HEMS and a Police heli (or any other heli in fact) in these Medevac situations ?
One difference which was on the programmes, you will have noticed that it was dusk and the phone call received that the HEMS would not fly after 21.00 hours.
This is an important point in that HEMS are not a public service and do not have clearance for night time AD HOC landings.
A large proportion of Police casevacs for this reason occur at night which makes some sense due to the equipment they have on board IE FLIR camera, and nitesun, can be used to survey the landing site.
Hope this clears one point up for you THrre blades

[Twiddle]

Very few if any. Police Helicopters only get called if the local helimeds are unavailable.
Also see PAOM Part 1 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP612.PDF)
Section 5, chapter 2 page 1 for the rules, which seem somewhat contradictory but are what we have to work with. It may explain why some of us are reluctant to carry out casevac when it is NOT to safe life!
I was wondering how practical it is to combine hems and pas given that the required funding would be less?

[handysnaks]

I was wondering how practical it is to combine hems and pas given that the required funding would be less?

Well, for some Police Units (Wilts, Sussex) it is obviously very practical. For others (most of the metropolitan forces for example), it is almost (but not totally), impractical. The network of 'publicly funded' air ambulance cover is increasing all the time and so the need for police air support units to carry out this type of task is decreasing.

Note. I appreciate that all the 'pure' air ambulance operations in England and Wales are funded by charity. Generally the contributors to that charity are the public, hence 'publicly fuded'. Think of it as voluntary directly targetted taxation!;)

[Helinut]

It strikes me that some people on this thread are trying to blame those who have to follow the rules for the stupid nature of those rules. Do remember that police pilots involved in flights where they were trying to save a life in extremis have been threatened with prosecution by our fine UK regulator for a possible breach of the rules. Those of us who do police work (like any professional pilot) have spent a fair bit of time and money getting our licences and experience. Many ASU managers also hang the crew out to dry in an effort to deflect flak from the Unit itself.

[fkelly]

Twiddle...It's alarmingly easy to combine casualty work and police work. It's rather more complex to combine HEMS and police work because HEMS is specifically funded by an external agency and is legislated under JARS as such, which is why police casevac has so many freedoms [night etc]...it's free, it's last option threat to life.

Handysnaks....it's not really a question of rural -v- urban being impractical, it's demonstrative of the fact that the emergency services would rather depend on separate funding [council tax -v- fundraising] than actually work together as integrated services.

Helinut...the rules aren't actually stupid, though they're not really clear. There are rules about carriage of public passengers and rules about medical passengers; the two sets of rules don't really make sense. As far as the in extremis cases go I am not aware of any cases where the individuals were threatened with prosecution. A CAA FOI phone call to query the facts [or more likely a CAA deafening silence] is not a threat of prosecution.

[Thomas coupling]

Interesting comments in all. First about the programme:
We have done 4 Tv programmes now and quite frankly are fed up with them all!! However we did learn a valid lesson very early on: DON'T TRUST THE MEDIA!! It is essential that you get them to show you the rushes and that the operator (C Constable) has the final editing say on what is shown.
Obviously this is a compromise because they want drama and you want a boring bullet proof documentary!!
Examples that sprung to mind during this recent TV programme with S Yorks:[This is meant to be constructive so please don't take it the wrong way........]

1. Make sure the backdrops are realistic. Continuity is essential).
2. Flying shot with engine(s) at idle.
3. First shot autumn followed by next shot summer.
4. Flying whilst back doors open (negates Perf Class One for starters) - also massive FOD hazard. (IF it was shot with a/c in hover, then make sure the camera crew pan out to show the hover)
5. The standing on the helmet scene gives the wrong message to viewers.
6. Flying in thunder/Lightning - it looked like you were flying inside or damned near the cell itself...which obviously is crass stupidity. Either you land or get the commentary to explain that the a/c wasn't in any real danger.
7. Dubbing alternative helicopter sounds (it sounded like the squirrel?) over the MD902 rotor sound is a cheap way to edit after the static takes.

TV documentaries are double edged swords - you have to totally control their editing or else it bites you big time.

CASEVAC Vs HEMS.

We do about 100+ HEMS a year and about 20 Casevacs.
HEMS is when you are airborne either because you are being paid to fly by the ambulance authority or you planned to carry a paramedic in the first instance. The magic word that differentiates one from the other is: INTENT. If you intend to take money off the ambulance trust and/or roster a paramedic to fly with you, you are a HEMS outfit (assuming the CAA give you the approval in the first palce).
HEMS is legislated for by JAR OPs3.
Casevac by ANO.
No HEMS at night because you need two pilots OR a HEMS crew member (paramedic) in the co-pilot seat AND approval to fly in your force area because the topography is suitable for single pilot ops. [Only WILTS have this approval in the police world).
Both definitions (HEMS and Casevac, more or less mean the same thing in terms of saving life. IF the patient is possibly/probably going to die - you pick them up.. no messing about.
The vagaries of "possibly/probably" will always lie in the anulls of medical prognosis and the CAA nor anyone else for that matter will ever be able to challenge the paramedics views.

For those who relish being filmed in future: the devils in the small print and don't believe a word they say:E

[Arctic Tern]

Gentlemen.
Didn't see the programme, but from some of the comments regarding editing and this critical review of the decisions taken and actions carried-out, it all seems like every other 'fly on the wall' documentary about airborne response type helicopters. Many years ago an ITV company filmed a series called Rescue at Lossiemouth. Over the 12 months of filming there were many good things that were completely overlooked, and many pointless or embarrassing events that were highlighted. Indeed few of us escaped ridicule or criticism.
For those involved in this Police Helicopter documentary I wish you every success and keep up the good work. For those of you too ready to criticize, may you continue to be perfect in everything you do. :=

[Coconutty]

No Sky Cops being shown next week :{

According to the beeb they are showing ( the last ? ) episode of "Vet Safari",
and the closest you get to a helicopter on that programme will be an R22 :rolleyes:

.... Now then - Sky+ ... was it the Green button, or the Blue button to set the timer recorder ?
- 2000 hrs on 4th November :ok:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

[ShyTorque]

Totally agree with the sentiments about supposed "good press" appearing as "bad press" because of the particular "angle" wanted by the TV documentary makers.

I point blank refused to take part to appear in person in a previous series of "Chopper Coppers", mainly because of family security concerns. I did some flying shots but only the back of my head appeared on TV, with the name tag removed from my flying helmet..

[Thud_and_Blunder]

[Only WILTS have this approval in the police world)

I think Sussex manage pretty well with their scheme, too.

[skydriller]

Thanks for the informed replies chaps. I did think that there was more to it than was broadcast during the show, but the way the medical evacuation flight came across on the programme was a bit too jobsworth for my liking. BTW, I had noticed some of the inconsistancies myself, hence my comment about the editing of the programme....There is another discussion going on about it here too, though not quite as informed by the look of it:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=244766

It would seem that the nightime limitation on the dedicated privately funded Ambulance helicopters is quite a drawback, is there a case for having a medic with a Police chopper permanantly considering their greater capability?

Regards, SD..

[thelynxeffect]

I wonder if the helmets get 'tested' at the end of every shift, if so than I'm not surprised it cracked!

[flarecheckohdear]

The Air Ambulance doesn't operate at night unless twin pilot (London HEMS I think) so the police units generally pick up most of the night time serious CASEVACs. As this can involve landing in a dark field on a dark, wet & windy night without the benefit of ATC/ground lights etc and relies on good SOP's/native cunning and experience to get down safely, you can bet your bottom dollar that the police a/c only want to go to 'life threatening' cases as stated by the doctor/paramedic at the scene. Unfortunately, police a/c have occasionally (I have had several) been called to 'life threatening' cases only to find the patient sat/stood chatting away happily with no threat to life, after a particularly sporty approach/landing.:ugh: The paramedic states that the Air Ambulance regularly goes to these type of cases in daylight so what is the problem! After a hearty de-brief we part wiser men (or women).:confused: Genuine question.....what are the criteria regarding patients/casevacs and air ambulances. Are you a substitute for a ground vehicle on occasions if they are short. Are you life threatening only?

Apart from the odd misunderstanding, the PARAMEDICS do a fantastic job which I for one couldn't/wouldn't contemplate doing so they get my vote for a pay rise every time and a beer when I bump into them.