Military Aeromedical Evacuation By Helicopter – Implication for Urban Australia

The potential and the value of the helicopter for the rapid forward air evacuation of combat casualties was confirmed in Korea and further refined in Vietnam. In Korea, more than 20,000 victims of conflict were evacuated to hospital by helicopter. In Vietnam, Military Aeromedical Evacuation provided a service so that no soldier was ever more than 35 minutes away from a Medical facility capable of giving definitive resuscitative life-saving treatment. The overall mortality rate of those injured in Vietnam was only 2. 3 per cent. This low figure must to a large extent have been due to the rapid evacuation of casualties permitted by helicopter transport.

The helicopter has clearly established its role in military aeromedical evacuation and many Australian soldiers owe their lives to the rapid transit from battlefield to hospital permitted by the “Dust-off” helicopter. Despite the impressive record of the military medical helicopter, there are still many who would question the validity of comparing the military scenario to that of a busy civilian metropolitan environment. Many ask, “What relevance have military helicopter operations to the greater metropolitan region of Australia’s cities in particular and to the rural sector in general”.

Much that has been learned from experience with Army aeromedical evacuation has direct application to the urgent problems facing the civilian medical sector – the problems of providing emergency medical care to accident victims in both rural and metropolitan areas. The experience that Army medical services have gained in the utilisation of helicopter ambulances can and should be translated to civilian emergency health programs.

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