A day in the life of an air ambulance crew By Katie Poel of the East of England Ambulance Service Trust
Working on an Air Ambulance is both busy and challenging. Aircrew paramedic Steve Dennehy, explains: “With a doctor and paramedic on board, we can do things for patients that before never would have seemed possible in the pre-hospital environment.”
Katie Poel, Communications Manager for the East of England Ambulance Service Trust, spent a day with the crew to find out what life is like behind the scenes.
She reports: “I met up with Steve, pilot Dave Surtees and Dr Ben O’Brien at the airbase just before 8am. We went through dozens of safety and equipment checks for the helicopter. Because the Air Ambulance crew includes a doctor specialising in pre-hospital medicine, there were lots of additional drugs.
“At a team briefing the pilot gave us the latest info on flying conditions around the region and how we might be affected, as well as updates on which hospitals we would be able to fly patients to.
“We had our first call out at about 11.30am – a young boy with a suspected fracture to his leg in a difficult to access location. As soon as we were airborne, however, control cancelled and diverted us to another incident.
“A 16-year-old boy had been playing football when he hurt his back and reported he couldn’t feel his legs. The land crew requested the air ambulance.
“We landed in the football pitch, and Steve and Ben ran over to assess the patient. Ben, an anaesthetist who also specialises in pre-hospital care, thought the likelihood of a serious bone injury was low, to the relief of the boy’s family. The patient was given pain relief, carefully loaded into the air ambulance’s special scoop and flown to hospital, where he was handed over to a team in A&E.”
Dr Raj Maroju is one of the full-time Air Ambulance doctor, but on this day Ben was filling in, as he does from time to time as the air crew rota requires and his schedule allows.
Ben, who has had several years of experience flying with Air Ambulances, said: “The helicopter doesn’t automatically convey patients. Sometimes its main role is to bring specialist help to the scene. ”
Steve added: “One of the unique features of the Air Ambulance is that it can provide rapid transport to get seriously ill patients to hospitals where the best possible care will be available. The Royal London or Addenbrookes, for instance, can often be the best destination for patients with multiple traumatic injuries.”
The aircrew can also carry out advanced procedures before the patient even leaves the scene. For example the doctor and aircrew paramedic can work together with land ambulance colleagues to rapidly anaesthetise a patient. This sets the patient up really well for further care once they’ve arrived at Accident & Emergency.
Dave said: “The role of the Air Ambulance varies: sometimes we’re a delivery service, flying a highly trained team to a time-critical patient; sometimes we’re a patient transport service for patients who happen to be in a location that’s difficult to access.”
Back at the airbase, Steve and Ben ran through a training scenario, practicing what they would do in the case of a traumatic cardiac arrest.
As daylight dwindled, it was time to prepare the helicopter to go back to its hangar. More stock checks followed, and after that, the team went inside to complete paperwork.
Katie reflected on the day: “Working on the Air Ambulance is extremely hard but rewarding work. There’s nothing glamorous about the ‘bread and butter’ work they do at the airbase throughout the day. And when they fly to an incident, they share the same priorities as colleagues on the ground – patient care.”
As Ben succinctly put it: “We try to treat every job like it’s the job and do good by our patient.”