Underslinging a casualty

[Droopy]

This item Albrecht fall - Yahoo! Eurosport UK (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/video/22012009/58/albrecht-fall.html) shows a rather nasty skiing accident. The casualty is extracted via the hook, presumably due to the slippery slope, but I'm interested in how far they would transport him - it's scary enough dangling from a winch, never mind a hook!

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I know this is accepted practice in some parts of the world but the paramedics and casualty are exposed for a very long time and are a very long way from the ground.

Surely just craning the casualty at a safe height to a land ambulance or a better landing site would be preferable.

[hammerhead70]

Droopy:
I'm class D certified in Canada. Means I can legally transport a human external load. And that's one of a few prerequisites that have to be in place to conduct such operation. The training isn't hard, since most pilots who do that kind of stuff are usually quite proficient in longline operations already.
Knowing the legal side is just as important!

The helicopter itself has to be equipped with either a double hook system or a belly band in addition to the regular belly hook. Under no circumstances will such a load be flown on just one hook. There is also an airspeed restriction, which is 60 Kts with a load on the hook.

We use this kind of rescue as a last resort only on seismic or logging jobs or in the mountains during heliskiing operations.
Sometimes terrain, trees or the type of injury ask for this kind of retrieval though.
The load will be flown to the nearest point where emergency personnel is able to take over the injured person and not further. Usually it's just a short flight that sometimes doesn't even last 2 minutes.

Cheers!

[fkelly]

Wonder why they wouldn't just sled him down to the braking area and load into the aircraft from there? These medics are very skilled at taking people down entire mountains on stretchers, wouldn't have thought it would be that difficult compared to the exposure on the underslung method. Surely they weren't that desperate to clear the run?

[tecpilot]

It´s a long discussed field here

Try
http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/162817-sar-search-rescue-ops.html

or search for shorthaul operation

[tecpilot]

Of course money is a big point.

But there is also not enough flight performance on the EC 135 to carry winch and winch-operator additionally to the basic 3 persons rescue crew for high mountain rescues. And it's very difficult to bring the patient in a rescue bag after hoisting inside the small cabin. The austrians ordered their first five EC 135 some years ago with hoist provisions, but after some trials they decided to use the rope. And it works good enough to do each year more than 700 rope rescues in Austria. Plus some hundreds additionally in Germany and Switzerland.

[Te_Kahu]

In NZ one provider of rescue helicopter services is using AS350BAs and an B222 to sling load casualties :ooh:

TK

[rotorhead999]

The crew of 4 ( 2 pilots, a doc and a medic ) that fly HEMS with a S76 where whatching the emergency evac of Albrecht on tv. And all of us thought WTF are they doing?

Why didn´t they just land and load the poor guy INTO the heli?
If the medic crew taking care of him are from the heli, then the pilot must have landed to let them off?
Why then sling load the poor guy? And if you absolutly want to sling why such a long rope?

Looking att the video the braking area looks big enough for me to land the S76!

[tecpilot]

Why didn´t they just land and load the poor guy INTO the heli?

Simple, there is still a >20° slope on the accident site. Near the site the slope is up to 50°. The track is fully iced. The skier racing down with more than 130km/h or do you think short before the finish line the area is flat? := No, it's the high speed final part.

Look here, the medics wear special sharp ice crampons to stand on the iced track.
Helicopter rescue after ski crash - Your News, Your Photos, Your Voice - WeSay.com (http://www.wesay.com/Top_Photos/Sports/221200931542768/1/)


If the medic crew taking care of him are from the heli, then the pilot must have landed to let them off?
Why then sling load the poor guy? And if you absolutly want to sling why such a long rope?

The medics on the accident site are special race medics postioned along the whole track ready for immediate action. The helicopter is also on immediate alert status reserved for the skiers on the race and direct near the track. The ground medics do the first care and prepare the patient ready for the shorthaul. The helicopter comes direct to the site overhead the patient. No ground transport, no carrying. The medics on ground connecting the rescue bag, the doc and may be a paramedic with the rope and the helicopter lift they up. Within 3 minutes the patient is smooth transported above the few thousend visitors and fences and from any possible accident site on the track direct to the medical center also on the race ground. There the medics decide to do further medical care or to transport the injured direct to the best hospital. It's a well and often trained scenario before the races.

It's the same like the standard rescue procedures on a Formula 1 race. Because on this circus on ice is the same money around :ok:


Because nobody knows at which point on the track an accident could happen, the rescue is fully standardized and the whole involved rescue personal have their personal tasks. It would take much longer to carry a patient to the helicopter, to load him into the helicopter or to skiing him down than using this way. And it's not a professional manner in front of a lot of cameras and visitors to alarm the helicopter with the call "Try to land her, if not come back with the rope". In the described way the rescue is allways and on every point of the track possible. No uncalculated experiments!

[Brilliant Stuff]

I think that makes a lot of sense. After all there is only one hymnsheet to sing from which should make the risk assessment easy enough. Considering the knowledge involved in that part of the world/industry.

[tecpilot]

Of course it's sometimes good to fly the "load" on the rope direct into a hospital, if there is one within a few minutes. Believe me, you can't get more tribute and admiration from the nicest nurses around as if you come down on the rooftop landing spot on a 12mm diameter rope, fully dressed in GoreTex with harness and helmet. A little bit of kerosene odor couldn't hurt. It smells like action and adventure which they never see personally in their hospital. They like it. :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v674/tecpi/3-lift-1.jpg