Helicopters

OBJECTIVE: The epidemiology accompanying helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) transport has evolved as agencies have matured and become integrated into regionalized health systems, as evidenced primarily by nationwide systems in Europe. System-level congruence between Europe and the United States, where HEMS is geographically fragmentary, is unclear. In this study, we provide a temporal, epidemiologic characterization of the largest standardized private, nonprofit HEMS system in the United States, STAT MedEvac...

OBJECTIVE: Interhospital transfer by air (IHTA) represents the majority of helicopter air ambulance transports in the United States, but the evaluation of what factors are associated with utilization has been limited. We aimed to assess the association of geographic distance and hospital characteristics (including patient volume) with the use of IHTA. METHODS: This was a multicenter, retrospective study of helicopter flight request data from 2018 provided by a convenience sample of 4 critical care transport medicine programs in 3 US census regions...

OBJECTIVE: Although a small proportion of helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) missions are for pediatric patients, it is recognized that children do present unique challenges. This case series aims to evaluate the intubation first-pass success rate in HEMS pediatric patients for both medical and trauma patients in a UK semiurban environment. METHODS: A retrospective review of the computerized records system was performed from January 1, 2015, to July 31, 2022, at 1 UK HEMS...

OBJECTIVE: Overtriage (ie, delivering less severely injured patients via helicopter) is costly, raises safety concerns, and reduces efficiency of the trauma system. The Air Medical Prehospital Triage (AMPT) scoring system was developed to determine which trauma patients would gain a survival benefit by air transport. The objective of this study was to evaluate the AMPT scoring system as a method of reducing trauma overtriage when helicopter emergency medical services were used. METHODS: A retrospective study of all scene trauma transports delivered by helicopter to 1 of 2 level 1 trauma centers was evaluated for 1) hospital stay less than 1 day and 2) failure to meet 1 of the following criteria for resource utilization: intensive care unit admission, an operative procedure within the first 24 hours, the need for blood products, Injury Severity Score ≥ 16, or death during hospitalization...

BACKGROUND: Accurate haemodynamic monitoring in the prehospital setting is essential. Non-invasive blood pressure measurement is susceptible to vibration and motion artefact, especially at extremes of hypotension and hypertension: invasive arterial blood pressure (IABP) monitoring is a potential solution. This study describes the largest series to date of cases of IABP monitoring being initiated prehospital. METHODS: This retrospective observational study was conducted at East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), a UK helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS)...

A military helicopter is easily attacked by bullets in a battlefield environment. The composite blade is the main lifting surface and control surface of the helicopter. Its ballistic performance directly determines the vulnerability and survivability of the helicopter in the battlefield environment. To study the ballistic performance of the composite helicopter blade, the damage characteristics of the impacted composite rotor blade are obtained by experiments. A numerical simulation model is established by applying Abaqus software to predict the blade ballistic damage...

High-resolution three-dimensional data from sensors such as LiDAR are sufficient to find power line towers and poles but do not reliably map relatively thin power lines. In addition, repeated detections of the same object can lead to confusion while data gaps ignore known obstacles. The slow or failed detection of low-salience vertical obstacles and associated wires is one of today's leading causes of fatal helicopter accidents. This article presents a method to efficiently correlate vertical structure observations with existing databases and infer the presence of power lines...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

PURPOSE: To present the outcomes of the U.S. Navy photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) accessioning study conducted between 2000 and 2005 that helped lead to the acceptance of laser vision correction within the U.S. aviation industry. METHODS: In this prospective masked study, a total of 301 students who had PRK and underwent naval flight training were compared to 4,368 untreated peers. Three training pipelines were compared: propeller/jet transport, jet fighters, and helicopters...

Trauma is a major global health issue, causing significant mortality, disability, and healthcare expenses. Since 2012, the Ajou Trauma Center in South Korea has been at the forefront, providing centralized severe trauma care for a population of 9.5 million. In 2022, the center managed 3,500 cases of severe trauma, including 500 helicopter transports, and conducted 2,800 surgeries, with 450 addressing torso trauma. Its exceptional performance has garnered global recognition, solidifying its position among the top advanced trauma centers...

Prehospital trauma evaluation begins with the primary assessment of airway, breathing, circulation, disability, and exposure. This is closely followed by vital signs and a secondary assessment. Key prehospital interventions include management and resuscitation according to the aforementioned principles with a focus on major hemorrhage control, airway compromise, and invasive management of tension pneumothorax. Determining the appropriate time and method for transportation (eg, ground ambulance, helicopter, police, private vehicle) to the hospital or when to terminate resuscitation are also important decisions to be made by emergency medical services clinicians...

BACKGROUND: Improving oxygenation and ventilation in drowning patients early in the field is critical and may be lifesaving. The critical care interventions performed by physicians in drowning management are poorly described. The aim was to describe patient characteristics and critical care interventions with 30-day mortality as the primary outcome in drowning patients treated by the Danish Air Ambulance. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study with 30-day follow-up identified drowning patients treated by the Danish Air Ambulance from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2021...

This study seeks to use examine the utility of recently published, developmentally informed measures of parental active tracking for work on youth health behaviors. Information on parental active tracking and health behaviors were collected in six independent survey studies ( n 's = 157-408). A series of empirical questions regarding parental active tracking were examined. The recently published measures of parental active tracking in high school and college were shown to have sufficient internal consistency, to be well described by single latent factors, to be empirically distinct from helicopter parenting, to be inconsistently linked with youth risk behaviors, and to demonstrate closer linkages with youth substance use when accounting for parental motivations for tracking...

Background Helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) documentaries attract millions of viewers, and publicly available patient stories on Air Ambulance websites are vital to raise awareness and funding for Air Ambulance charities in the United Kingdom (UK). Despite abundant research investigating how fictional programs and news outlets present patient health outcomes, there are no comprehensive studies that investigate how non-fictional HEMS documentaries or Air Ambulance websites present patient outcomes...

Ninety-four percent of global maternal deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The UN has a goal of reducing maternal deaths to <70 per 100,000 live births by 2030, but progress is minimal. Maternal deaths in LMICs are associated with 3 delays in the care of women with obstetrical emergencies: 1) in the family of the woman realizing that her life is at risk, 2) in the transport of the woman to a hospital, and 3) in providing care after arrival at the hospital. These 3 delays function like links in a chain, and failure of any link leads to maternal death...

BACKGROUND: Physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) are dispatched to a variety of incidents, ranging from less serious to life-threatening. The skillset of a physician may be important to provide appropriate care for the most critically ill and severely injured patients. A better understanding of these patients may therefore be important to optimize dispatch criteria, training, and equipment setups for HEMS units. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of patients with the national advisory committee on aeronautics (NACA) score 5 and 6, primarily by diagnostic group and interventions performed...

In this paper, the robust adaptive optimal tracking control problem is addressed for the disturbed unmanned helicopter based on the time-varying gain extended state observer (TVGESO) and adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) methods. Firstly, a novel TVGESO is developed to tackle the unknown disturbance, which can overcome the drawback of initial peaking phenomenon in the traditional linear ESO method. Meanwhile, compared with the nonlinear ESO, the proposed TVGESO possesses easier and rigorous stability analysis process...

Air medical transport of critically ill and injured patients began during World War II. Now air transport has become an integral part of health care, nationally and internationally. With the development of portable medical equipment critical care has extended beyond the hospital by bringing critical care to the scene or to rural hospitals. Air medical programs transport critically ill and injured patients by helicopter or airplane while continuously providing critical care enroute. These transports are interfacility from accident scenes, disaster areas, and remote locations where the patient is transported to a tertiary care center so that definitive care will be provided...

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the skies have become a battleground against time in a world where every second counts. Since its inception in 1978, a revolution has occurred in emergency medical services, with LifeFlight Helicopters soaring to new heights in emergency treatment and transport. This article will explore the transformation of helicopter emergency medical services through the decades, where every rotor blade spins with a mission to save lives and rewrite the rules of survival. Allegheny Health Network's LifeFlight is a rotor-wing (helicopter) aeromedical transport service that provides rapid emergent transport for critically ill and injured persons...

Vertical flight was sought-after by scientists for centuries, finding early beginnings in children's toys and slowly developing into the modern helicopter. For centuries, true success was elusive, and many machines failed to achieve safe, controlled flight. Despite slow progress, vertical flight enthusiasts were unrelenting and continued trialing new concepts until one finally rose above the rest. As technology advanced, the critical role of helicopters in medical evacuation became apparent. Throughout recent history, continuous progress in vertical flight technology has led to widespread and multifaceted use of helicopters in civilian and military medical operations...