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

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..

choppoer coppers
 

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

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?

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

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.

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....

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

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.

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

Wheelbarrow
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/d1.../Coconutty.jpg

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?

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.

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.

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'.

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

Also see PAOM Part 1
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!

................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: