HEMS at night
 

Sudbury: Man airlifted to hospital after being trapped underneath vehicle - News - East Anglian Daily Times

Is there any non military unit that operates hems at night? This one seemed to be busy... Police appeared to light the landing sight with the night sun for the sea king.
I didn't realise that there was any night time medical air support in the country...

TIA

MADY

There was one civil HEMS NVG trial in Germany, Bavarian area around city of Regensburg in spring 2011. can be more but not so many in Europe....

EDIT: link added, pls copy&paste, Forum parser is not able to process link directly

There is previous on this in PRUNE somewhere.

At present, no pure HEMS operates HEMS at night. However, 2 joint Police-HEMS Units do operate at night: Wiltshire and Sussex. Police heles have additional equipment to be able to check out a potential landing site: FLIR/Nitesun.

In addition, police units can do CASEVACs. These are limited to "life saving" jobs. The extent to which a police unit does these is largely a matter of local policy. Who knows what NPAS will make of CASEVACs.

One or two of the Air Ambulance charities contemplate night HEMS from time to time. You can expect the CAA to make it difficult, because it will increase the chance of an accident.

So what make the sea king special on this occasion? I would assume they were using NVG? Both suffolk police and the SAR unit are based at Wattisham so they both had to travel (read race!) to the scene...

MADY

Boundaries are being pushed, rules tested. Several HEMS operations are looking at lit HLSs accompanied by lights at their own base to enable ops to continue from daylight into dusk only.

Some of MAS' choppers (MD902s IIRC) are supplied with NVG capability, but I'm not sure whther that is a cost option or standard fit for re-sale.

Mady, Military SAR have no restrictions on night landing sites provided they can see the landing area and they have seen any hazards they can crack on.

Regards

AFAIK the Swiss (REGA) and the Dutch (MAA) operate with NVGs on a regular basis. Both are civy operators.

The key difference is that Military SAR units operate as a Multi Pilot Crew with a Crewman to provide additional direction and Situational Awareness during the approach. During NVG operations one pilot will fly the aircraft whilst the non flying pilot carries all other cockpit duties. NVG are outstanding but there are limitations related to field of view, problems with spotting wires, light saturation, low ambient light levels and the difficulty of judging closing speeds.

MADY,

In principle, either aircraft you mention could have landed on and taken the casualty/ies, so long as the case fulfilled the CASEVAC requirements in the PAOM. There could be all sorts of reasons why one was used rather than the other.

One limitation of an "ordinary" police hele is that they do not carry a paramedic as crew. For a CASEVAC they will take a paramedic from the scene, usually. Such a person has to be there for a CASEVAC, as they or another medic have to provide the evidence of life-saving.

As I say, the other limitation is that different police units have very different views about whether or not to CASEVAC. Some almost never do, others do quite a few.

Mady - I don't know any more about this incident than I've read in the article that you linked to but Pentlow is not in Suffolk, so they may have not both attended from Wattisham as you surmised. Not that that changes very much.

mady - - not sure where you got this from but I spoke to a friend at the Essex Police Helicopter Unit & understand their aircraft illuminated the scene for the ambulance teams, but had gone before the Wattisham Seaking even took off. The latter would therefore have used his own kit (probably lights, rather than NVG?) given that I hear the area was fairly well lit by Fire Brigade when the Police aircraft left.

I gather the Essex aircraft would have taken a short while to re-role for a casevac, and the Wattisham SAR had already been called out for it anyway, with superior ability to carry bloody casualties, paramedics & medical kit. The Police aircraft would have had to drop off one of its Observers, and some kit, and still only carry one casualty, rendering it unable to continue its main role for a few hours until they had re-roled again. In addition, I gather they would only consider taking a stabilised patient, as trying to work on one who wasn't would prove awkward in amongst the remaining Police kit. Even the fully kitted Helimed aircraft need to stabilise their patients somewhat, before flying them. With Wattisham SAR so close, it was obviously a more logical choice.

Helinut - you're correct about Pentlow being in Essex (just), as well as there being more on PPrune about night HEMS, as I'm sure I read a similar thread last week. In that light, & as far as mady's other question goes, Cambridge Police regularly operate with a MAGPAS Doctor/paramedic for night HEMS.

Thanks for these answers,

Yes I knew Pentlow was just in Essex...

Does Magpas still operate with Cambridge police? Thought that practice all stopped when EAAA moved from Wyton to Cambridge? Or is it as you say only a night time operation?
If it is then this would answer my orignal question about Medical air support at night...
They would be the only civilian (on a police aircraft) night operation?

MADY

it's relevant to point out that both the Scottish Ambulance service EC135s (Glasgow and Inverness operated by Bond) are 24hour and IFR although they only fly to approved and pre-surveyed sites at night.

OH

MADY,

You would be right about Cambridge, except for the two that I mentioned previously.

According to the grand plans of the National Police Aviation Service, none of those 3 will be operating once NPAS makes police aviation "more effective and efficient".

Flying between prepared and surveyed sites at night using full IFR (as in Scotland) is a completely different kettle of fish, and isn't HEMS.

Helimed 98 the Second Yorkshire Air Ambulance MD902 has the capability to operate at night and in Bad weather but I don't think the Charity has requested clearance.

BBC News - East Anglian Air Ambulance seeks night time flying funds

I suspect there is a little inter-service provider rivalry going on here.

G-mady: yes, MAGPAS continue to utilise the Cambridge police helicopter. But IIUC that is one machine slated for the chop in the not too distant future.

NVIS in HEMS
 

At least four out of seven HEMS stations in Sweden are using night vision imaging systems (NVIS) in their night operations. A fifth one is on the way. All are operated by civil operators (Norrlandsflyg and Scandinavian Medicopter).

Most EMS operators in NZ are operating at night with googles , all are civy operators.

My question is what happens if it all goes dark ?! ie; googles fail ? Can you adjust quick enough ?

In Portugal the HEMS is also operated at night but with no NVG, only night sun.
Until now the NVG doesnt seem to make diference, and the operation at night its not a new thing here.

NVG's make a huge difference and anyone who has used them for any kind of operation will confirm that for you. I also believe that statistics for VFR night ops in the US will demonstrate their usefulness as HEMS adoption rates have been very high.

For ems-r22 remember that they are a VFR aid but never intended to take you where you shouldn't be flying aided or unaided VFR. This is where there is more of an issue with pilots potentially flying into adverse weather conditions, rather than failure of the NVG's. If the goggles should fail for some reason, you should still have sufficient references to reestablish VFR and that's why it's a good idea to look down the side occasionally or flip them up if conditions appear to be worsening beyond forecast. Failing that hopefully you have instruments, some good instrument training and an IIMC procedure to fall back on so that the lesson can be applied.