Victoria Park is 1000 feet from.....
Singleton hospital, a 550 bed modern hospital with 24 hour A and E and 4 consultant orthopaedic surgeons, 2 of whom specialise in trauma.
Morriston hospital is some 4-5 miles away. Less than ten minutes even if you stop at the red lights. 750 beds - one of the largest in the country.
We dont have traction splints on ambulances in general because they are not needed! Fractured legs are managed day in and day out by land ambulances. Even if there were risk to a blood vessel or nerve, the bloke could have been on the operating theatre next door before helimed could have got their frictions off.
With rubbish like this is it any wonder HEMS have a bad reputation amongst so many doctors.
I think this shows how detached some doctors are from the reality of the shortfalls of the ambulance service when they assume there is always an ambulance just waiting round the corner ready for the next 999 call. Consider the alternative headline, "Man with badly fractured leg in public park a few miles from hospital waits over an hour for an ambulance"
Jateeto is correct regarding behaviour of SOME control staff, and worse than that, some control room staff are quite adept at "sexing up" a job in order to justify sending a helicopter knowing full well it does not require one.