Originally Posted by
Non-PC Plod
I concur. I had a very similar situation in Bosnia about 20 yrs ago. We were called out in the middle of the night in a snowstorm to pick up a Canadian soldier who had a suspected heart attack. Turned out to be oesophagitis, which is a form of indigestion. (You dont find that out until afterwards!)
i had a passenger with this in an AS355 en-route London-Cardiff for a rugby game about 15 years ago. Apparently it is a common condition, often caused by cramming down a full English and then having a couple of pints at 09:00. Poor sod was convinced he was having a coronary, as were his mates. I diverted to a nearby airfield under a pan call, the ambulance met us and whisked him off. His mates decided we would carry on to Cardiff as the victim had paid for the trip and they wanted his monies worth.
The biggest question in my mind was that I was the only person with a first aid qualification, and the only person qualified to fly the helicopter, so other thah diverting what could I do? It made a total mockery of the CAA's requirement that we pilots should be qualified in first aid, and know how to administer help at the same time as controlling a machine which requires quite a lot of human input.
SND