RAF SAR vs Air Ambulance
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RAF SAR vs Air Ambulance
Slight thread drift whilst we wait with anticipation for the SARH outcome, but a few watches of the BBC Helicopter Heroes has shown the air ambulance pitching up to numerous jobs that are clearly winch jobs (base of cliffs, extensive carries to suitable landing sites etc) or the air ambulance has abandoned the patient as night looms. Surely people know about the nearby RAF SAR cab? Anything political going on? Is patient care perhaps not always the primary concern??
Standing well back..
Standing well back..
The 999 calls are processed first by the ambulance control rooms who allocate an appropriate asset (theirs not ours). A really switched on controller might recognise from the location that a SAR helo might be the best option but more often than not they don't (can't really blame them it's not in their job description).
The first ambulance asset on scene which might be a first responder, land ambulance or the air ambulance can then assess the situation and then make the call for the SAR helo.
It might not be the ideal solution for the patient as the process can take a few hours between initial 999 call and the SAR helo arriving which, if you are broken and bleeding on a cold hillside or similar, will seem like an eternity. However, it does usually mean that the casualty gets medical care quickly unless they are in a really inaccessible place and then we are just used for the extraction.
Through liaison we try to remind the ambulance crews of our existence (generally the AAs are very onside but the control rooms can be very different in their view of us) and it works across most parts of the UK.
The first ambulance asset on scene which might be a first responder, land ambulance or the air ambulance can then assess the situation and then make the call for the SAR helo.
It might not be the ideal solution for the patient as the process can take a few hours between initial 999 call and the SAR helo arriving which, if you are broken and bleeding on a cold hillside or similar, will seem like an eternity. However, it does usually mean that the casualty gets medical care quickly unless they are in a really inaccessible place and then we are just used for the extraction.
Through liaison we try to remind the ambulance crews of our existence (generally the AAs are very onside but the control rooms can be very different in their view of us) and it works across most parts of the UK.
Very diplomatic of you Crab! What you say is largely true, but sadly there are occasions of air ambulance units trying to keep the stats up rather than admitting defeat and summoning a SAR aircraft. Perhaps this would happen less often if they didn't have to rely on donations from the public?
On a similar subject, here is an example of why close cooperation between SAR and ambulance control needs to be constantly pursued:
www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2010FAI29.html
It's a long and sad story, and the author is evidently unaware of the difference between an air ambulance and a rescue helicopter, but the point is that time was wasted summoning the SAR aircraft (see Part II Section 3 paras 29-38).
On a similar subject, here is an example of why close cooperation between SAR and ambulance control needs to be constantly pursued:
www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2010FAI29.html
It's a long and sad story, and the author is evidently unaware of the difference between an air ambulance and a rescue helicopter, but the point is that time was wasted summoning the SAR aircraft (see Part II Section 3 paras 29-38).
Probably asking for it and its probably been asked before however...why don't the air ambulance guys have a winch particularly for occasions described above?
Different country I know, however I have been tasked to a MVA (or car accident), arrived on scene to find that no landing area is available ie in rugged terrain, and.....we have been able to winch our paramedic and doctor to the scene (they have appropriate training). Just having the capability rolled into a SAR/EMS platform gives flexibility = time saved.
Are NVG making there way into civil ops yet over there?
Cheers
Turkey
Different country I know, however I have been tasked to a MVA (or car accident), arrived on scene to find that no landing area is available ie in rugged terrain, and.....we have been able to winch our paramedic and doctor to the scene (they have appropriate training). Just having the capability rolled into a SAR/EMS platform gives flexibility = time saved.
Are NVG making there way into civil ops yet over there?
Cheers
Turkey
TOTD - judging by the poor girl's injuries, it would have made little difference in this case.
We have had situations in Wales where only a police officer can request a SAR helicopter (their rules not ours) whereas an MRT cannot. It all comes down to training and liaison.
Turkey - it comes down to cost, both for the winch and the training required to keep competent at winching ops - since the AAs in UK are funded by charity and only a few areas in UK would be likely to use the capability, it hasn't happened. There have also been questions raised about aircraft performance during winching.
We have had situations in Wales where only a police officer can request a SAR helicopter (their rules not ours) whereas an MRT cannot. It all comes down to training and liaison.
Turkey - it comes down to cost, both for the winch and the training required to keep competent at winching ops - since the AAs in UK are funded by charity and only a few areas in UK would be likely to use the capability, it hasn't happened. There have also been questions raised about aircraft performance during winching.
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You can't win
In the early days of Cornwall AA we were roasted in the local press because one of the guys on the Seven Stones Lightship had an angina attack and called Ambulance Control to request the AA, knowing that it was a B0105 just like the one he used to get to and from his workplace. Control turned him down because the lightship was in SAR territory and passed it on to CU.
The next day an irate tirade about inflexible ambulance people and stress caused due to winch trip into a SK appeared in the Western Morning News and we had egg all over our face.
That's life I guess.
G.
The next day an irate tirade about inflexible ambulance people and stress caused due to winch trip into a SK appeared in the Western Morning News and we had egg all over our face.
That's life I guess.
G.
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Turkey - Australia has the advantage of an authority that uses common sense. Your SAR/EMS ops have no accountability below Vy.
Having flown SAR/EMS in Australia and SAR and HEMS (separate entities as you know) in UK - I know which system is by far the most sensible operationally. BUT just ask yourself when you are taking off or landing on that hospital rooftop helipad or in a 100' hover winching - 'What would happen OEI?'
Mostly you would end in in a smoking hole in the ground. In UK SAR and HEMS are not expected to be exposed to that situation. CASA apparently judge that to be an acceptable risk. That is why you operate SAR/EMS combine and why you can fly around happily at MTOW.
Having flown SAR/EMS in Australia and SAR and HEMS (separate entities as you know) in UK - I know which system is by far the most sensible operationally. BUT just ask yourself when you are taking off or landing on that hospital rooftop helipad or in a 100' hover winching - 'What would happen OEI?'
Mostly you would end in in a smoking hole in the ground. In UK SAR and HEMS are not expected to be exposed to that situation. CASA apparently judge that to be an acceptable risk. That is why you operate SAR/EMS combine and why you can fly around happily at MTOW.
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Three times in the last year I've received police tasking to search for a missing person where I believed that, due to more appropriate equipment (NVG) and a far greater endurance, a SAR helo would have been a better asset for the task than our MD902. On two of these three occasions I accepted the tasking but persuaded the command & control centre to ring the ARCC to request a SAR cab as well. On the third occasion, with the search area in hilly terrain on a very dark night at the limits of our useful range, we suggested that the ARCC be called but, if a SAR cab was not available, then we would launch and do what we could. We weren't called back for whatever reason, the SAR cab wasn't requested and the misper was found dead nearby the next day.
On the most recent of these tasks a Sea King was only offered once we had completed our search - in an adjacent force area, a long way from base, and therefore potentially extending the search period quite significantly. I don't know why; I am quite able to arrange in-flight deconfliction between search assets, thanks. Police C&C staff are often nearly overwhelmed with other tasking and simply do not understand aviation, it's not their role in life; those who are experts have to spell out what is available and offer what they can. On that occasion I rang the SAR Flt directly to give them a 'heads-up' and found out they were about to fly a 2 hr training sortie, so there was no practical reason why the tasking should not have been accepted. (As it happened the misper was found safe & well soon afterwards by ground searchers.)
It's frustrating to know what is available (and to have to explain the 'for free' concept each time), knowing that the ARCC is likely to decline without explanation! Please, ARCC folks, give more feedback to the police staff if you decline their requests, otherwise they simply won't bother asking next time...!
E99
On the most recent of these tasks a Sea King was only offered once we had completed our search - in an adjacent force area, a long way from base, and therefore potentially extending the search period quite significantly. I don't know why; I am quite able to arrange in-flight deconfliction between search assets, thanks. Police C&C staff are often nearly overwhelmed with other tasking and simply do not understand aviation, it's not their role in life; those who are experts have to spell out what is available and offer what they can. On that occasion I rang the SAR Flt directly to give them a 'heads-up' and found out they were about to fly a 2 hr training sortie, so there was no practical reason why the tasking should not have been accepted. (As it happened the misper was found safe & well soon afterwards by ground searchers.)
It's frustrating to know what is available (and to have to explain the 'for free' concept each time), knowing that the ARCC is likely to decline without explanation! Please, ARCC folks, give more feedback to the police staff if you decline their requests, otherwise they simply won't bother asking next time...!
E99
It's all about education.
The SARF needs their liaison guy to visit as many police control rooms as possible spreading the word that their asset could be available if only they asked.
The police also need to make it known that they could do with heavy backup when the chips are down.
Pick up a phone and talk about it
The SARF needs their liaison guy to visit as many police control rooms as possible spreading the word that their asset could be available if only they asked.
The police also need to make it known that they could do with heavy backup when the chips are down.
Pick up a phone and talk about it
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It's good to see informed opinions here. The old chestnut of dealing with the 'controllers' was and is an ongoing problem. I remember moaning about RCC when working for HM, the response from my boss was, 'do you fancy a tour at Kinloss?', of course I declined the offer but it did highlight the problem that those persons suitably qualified to understand all the different types of assets available are usually doing the job with those very assets! One thing that has helped over here is 'out-reach' to the various emergency services to increase understanding of what we as a service provider can do (sorry about the 'corporate speech').
One thing that has helped over here is 'out-reach' to the various emergency services to increase understanding of what we as a service provider can do (sorry about the 'corporate speech').
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While it is, and always has been, highly commendable that the RAF SAR Force tries its level best to pass the message to the civilian emergency services control room staff, unfortunately it's simply never going to achieve the success it seeks.
The SAR Force is a small organisation with very limited capacity for such 'outreach' - there is only so much that a very small number of people can achieve. On the civ police side alone, there are more than 40 individual forces in the UK, many of which have a number of control rooms for separate areas within the force. Each control room has a large number of staff, only a proportion of whom will be in work if a SAR Force rep visits to spread the word and most of those who are there will be busy doing their jobs. In addition, police control rooms are inundated with a huge number of tasks, very few of which have any similarity to SAR tasking; looking at the computer screen next to me I see that my force generated 865 'logs' yesterday alone, and that was on a Tuesday well removed from the Thu / Fri / Sat public order hotspots. Further scale the problem up to include the ambulance control rooms and the scale of the task becomes even more daunting, hence why I stated that it would be nice for the ARCC staff (ie the 'experts') to be a little more forthcoming with supporting info when declining a request.
Top tip - the ideal people at which the SAR Force's efforts should be targeted would be the police Force Duty Officers (FDOs) - they are few in number but extremely influential and present in every control room -rather than trying to brief every member of staff in each control room. SAR boys & girls, you might want to consider this approach!
Keep up the good work, y'all.
E99
The SAR Force is a small organisation with very limited capacity for such 'outreach' - there is only so much that a very small number of people can achieve. On the civ police side alone, there are more than 40 individual forces in the UK, many of which have a number of control rooms for separate areas within the force. Each control room has a large number of staff, only a proportion of whom will be in work if a SAR Force rep visits to spread the word and most of those who are there will be busy doing their jobs. In addition, police control rooms are inundated with a huge number of tasks, very few of which have any similarity to SAR tasking; looking at the computer screen next to me I see that my force generated 865 'logs' yesterday alone, and that was on a Tuesday well removed from the Thu / Fri / Sat public order hotspots. Further scale the problem up to include the ambulance control rooms and the scale of the task becomes even more daunting, hence why I stated that it would be nice for the ARCC staff (ie the 'experts') to be a little more forthcoming with supporting info when declining a request.
Top tip - the ideal people at which the SAR Force's efforts should be targeted would be the police Force Duty Officers (FDOs) - they are few in number but extremely influential and present in every control room -rather than trying to brief every member of staff in each control room. SAR boys & girls, you might want to consider this approach!
Keep up the good work, y'all.
E99
E99,
Great idea - TVM.
If only...the pigs will not just be flying solo but will be on a mission to Mars before this happens
Great idea - TVM.
it would be nice for the ARCC staff (ie the 'experts') to be a little more forthcoming
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When we go to the lakes, we look at the map on the way and liaise with Mountain rescue. We would then warn control that SAR may be needed and they start the ball rolling. If it seems ok and then we get on-scene to a SAR situation, I call on 121.5 to RCC and call the SK. We get there much faster if they are at base. It seems to work, there is nothing political. We don't want a winch, WE ARE AN AMBULANCE, NOT SEARCH AND RESCUE. The issue about flying at night on HEMS. I will say one thing, can the charities afford it?
TorqueOfTheDevil,
How do AA units keep the stats up? The ambulance service have a duty to respond to emergencies, but that has nothing to do with the units.(unless charity run AA's have changed since my day) In the case of who and what they dispatch from control, charity money wouldn't even come in to the equation.
This is a genuine question and not a look for a poke in the eye, your post confused me.
How do AA units keep the stats up? The ambulance service have a duty to respond to emergencies, but that has nothing to do with the units.(unless charity run AA's have changed since my day) In the case of who and what they dispatch from control, charity money wouldn't even come in to the equation.
This is a genuine question and not a look for a poke in the eye, your post confused me.
Griff,
For a start, I'm not having a dig at all air ambulances, as I have a great deal of respect for the excellent service they provide. Secondly, I may have misunderstood some of the things I've seen happen. But for what it's worth, my point is simply that I have seen occasions when an air ambulance has got stuck in, sometimes of their own accord, when it seemed obvious right from the start that a SAR helicopter would be better suited to the incident, and this led me to wonder what the motives were.
For instance, a woman fell on rocks on the coast 2 miles north of RAF Boulmer and broke her leg (this is about two years ago). The call went to the ambulance service, who asked for an air ambulance. Being the weekend, the nearest one was in Carlisle; the aircraft launched, got to the scene, couldn't land anywhere nearby, so landed some way away, tried to reach her and eventually realized they couldn't do anything for the casualty (terrain unsuitable for stretcher carry, not enough people to do it in any case). At this stage, the Boulmer Sea King was requested, and the SAR crew recovered the woman in short order. Given that the location was shown on the map as an area of low cliffs and tidal rocks, I was surprised that a distant air ambulance crew decided to have a go when they knew there was a SAR base only one minute's flying time away. As it was, the delay while they attended meant the casualty spent the best part of an hour unnecessarily stranded. Another point is that the SK crew were surprised on arrival to find an air ambulance parked not far from the incident, given that no call had been made to Boulmer as the air amb approached (not mandatory to do so, of course, but good airmanship would suggest calling a SAR base when operating so close) - a cynic would surmise that the air amb crew didn't want to let on that there was an incident on Boulmer's doorstep in case the beastly SAR crew dared to resolve the situation quickly and successfully, and deny the air amb the chance to deliver a casualty to hospital. There are other incidents similar to this which I could relate but won't!
And there are the incidents which DDW alluded to in his post where it's difficult to understand why a lengthy and sometimes risky stretcher carry (two hours, in one episode I saw!) is preferred to getting a SAR aircraft. And the occasions when air amb personnel try to bully control room staff into giving them more trade (I've been told this in person by the boss of an ambulance service control room) while discouraging them from asking for a SAR aircraft by telling them that they will be charged for using it - the control room staff in many cases don't know any better and fall for this tripe!
Like I say, maybe I have it all wrong, but from what I've seen there do seem to be occasions when casualty welfare is not the over-riding priority when an air amb attends an incident. At the same time, what better way is there for a charity to keep the funds flowing in than to have an impressive list of people delivered to hospital...
For a start, I'm not having a dig at all air ambulances, as I have a great deal of respect for the excellent service they provide. Secondly, I may have misunderstood some of the things I've seen happen. But for what it's worth, my point is simply that I have seen occasions when an air ambulance has got stuck in, sometimes of their own accord, when it seemed obvious right from the start that a SAR helicopter would be better suited to the incident, and this led me to wonder what the motives were.
For instance, a woman fell on rocks on the coast 2 miles north of RAF Boulmer and broke her leg (this is about two years ago). The call went to the ambulance service, who asked for an air ambulance. Being the weekend, the nearest one was in Carlisle; the aircraft launched, got to the scene, couldn't land anywhere nearby, so landed some way away, tried to reach her and eventually realized they couldn't do anything for the casualty (terrain unsuitable for stretcher carry, not enough people to do it in any case). At this stage, the Boulmer Sea King was requested, and the SAR crew recovered the woman in short order. Given that the location was shown on the map as an area of low cliffs and tidal rocks, I was surprised that a distant air ambulance crew decided to have a go when they knew there was a SAR base only one minute's flying time away. As it was, the delay while they attended meant the casualty spent the best part of an hour unnecessarily stranded. Another point is that the SK crew were surprised on arrival to find an air ambulance parked not far from the incident, given that no call had been made to Boulmer as the air amb approached (not mandatory to do so, of course, but good airmanship would suggest calling a SAR base when operating so close) - a cynic would surmise that the air amb crew didn't want to let on that there was an incident on Boulmer's doorstep in case the beastly SAR crew dared to resolve the situation quickly and successfully, and deny the air amb the chance to deliver a casualty to hospital. There are other incidents similar to this which I could relate but won't!
And there are the incidents which DDW alluded to in his post where it's difficult to understand why a lengthy and sometimes risky stretcher carry (two hours, in one episode I saw!) is preferred to getting a SAR aircraft. And the occasions when air amb personnel try to bully control room staff into giving them more trade (I've been told this in person by the boss of an ambulance service control room) while discouraging them from asking for a SAR aircraft by telling them that they will be charged for using it - the control room staff in many cases don't know any better and fall for this tripe!
Like I say, maybe I have it all wrong, but from what I've seen there do seem to be occasions when casualty welfare is not the over-riding priority when an air amb attends an incident. At the same time, what better way is there for a charity to keep the funds flowing in than to have an impressive list of people delivered to hospital...
TOTD
Surely not the same person heavily involved in Soteria?
In defence of the ARCCK, they are hardly likely to get a lot of experienced SAR boys and girls (although there are some there and OC ARRCK is a SARboy) because the front-line can't spare them. They do make a huge effort to spread the word and do many visits themselves and get involved (along with the RAFLOs) with exercises organised by civilian emergency services.
The boss of the ARCC 7-8 years ago prided himself on having significantly reduced the number of callouts that the SAR Force got
In defence of the ARCCK, they are hardly likely to get a lot of experienced SAR boys and girls (although there are some there and OC ARRCK is a SARboy) because the front-line can't spare them. They do make a huge effort to spread the word and do many visits themselves and get involved (along with the RAFLOs) with exercises organised by civilian emergency services.
Yes, we had an ARCC controller visit our air ambo unit last year to discuss cooperation and control. Very friendly and useful information.
RAFSAR (v) Air Ambulance?..... For me means: 280 rescue sorties in 13 years (v) 4900 AA tasks in 9 years.
(2 a month (v) 3 a day)
RAFSAR (v) Air Ambulance?..... For me means: 280 rescue sorties in 13 years (v) 4900 AA tasks in 9 years.
(2 a month (v) 3 a day)