Air ambulances should carry blood, says B.C. woman

[tniuqs]

Ah VIH, one of my captains on the KA 200 based out of Peace River (call sign Johnny Walker) flew for them, he flew fixed wing and fling wingers too. He was awesome and never made the 6 o'clock news, although on "moose counting patrols" well, what happens in the bird, stays in bird.

Frankly with that "prang" and it was all very poor pilot proficiency / judgement the MOT investigators let the pilot off way to lightly (well in the media) she "boxed" herself in and with full fuel load (it was a short hop out of Van) the S 76 is not a good performer on vertical departure. Kicking over tail blind and in such tight quarters, well all I can say is was her lucky day.

Dear Happy getting a patient "fast to a hospital" or "new at a contract" is a very poor defence, with minimum of 5 lives and a 12 million dollar bird "mission uninformed pilots" is proven to be the safest for all concerned.

Can I say she was too cocky ?

[BushyFromOz]

Dear Happy getting a patient "fast to a hospital" or "new at a contract" is a very poor defence, with minimum of 5 lives and a 12 million dollar bird "mission uninformed pilots" is proven to be the safest for all concerned.

Not kidding. Using the center line on the road and the rotor head as a reference point, its a pretty good guage of how far the horizontal drift and quite clearly the silly bastard at the controls as heading out over the field for some translational lift - fat chopper and all. Had they have not hit the rotor on the wire they may have succeeded in putting the tail rotor into it instead when they tried to line up their egress.

Like i said, our guys, who are CHC mind you, would not have a chopper there in the first place. critical patient or not.

[paramedicmike]

When I look at that video I have to wonder why the pilot didn't just go straight up and then in the other direction but who knows what was going through their minds. To their defence these pilots had just started flying for BC ambulance and if that accident was bad was probably just thinking I have to get this person to the hospital fast it is a crappy thing to happen just as they get the contract but what do you do............

Really? When I look at that video I wonder just what they hell they were thinking. That's no place to land and they should have known that regardless if they had just started flying for BC Ambulance or not. Being new to the service is not a defense. This was a case of exceptionally bad decision making and borderline stupidity on behalf of everyone involved in this situation. That nobody died is sheer dumb luck.

If the pilots were thinking they had to get the patient to the hospital quickly then they were not doing their job. Their job is to get the aircraft and crew/passengers from point A to point B as *safely* as possible. Speed is a given in the situation. Safety is not unless the pilots and crew make it a priority. In this case, the pilots failed, the crew failed, the bystanders failed, the LZ officers failed, the fire guys watching this all unfold failed. The level of failure evident in this video is so amazingly horrific that it's just downright disgusting.

There are many reasons why a helicopter won't take off straight up. Wind direction, weight, humidity, temperature, available power and more play into the decision making process and physics of rotor wing flight. None of those factors are known in this video.

Getting a contract or not is not an issue. This was so blatant a safety failure that they'd be lucky to keep the contract.

What do you do? Fire the pilots. Hell, I'd consider firing the med crew, too. They're just as responsible for aircraft, crew and patient safety as the pilots are and they failed miserably. I'd do retraining of all the EMS/Fire organizations in the area with regards to LZ selection, hazards and aircraft safety.

There is no excuse for what happened in this video. They are exceptionally lucky that nobody was hurt or died as a result.

[Happiness]

Ah VIH, one of my captains on the KA 200 based out of Peace River (call sign Johnny Walker) flew for them, he flew fixed wing and fling wingers too. He was awesome and never made the 6 o'clock news, although on "moose counting patrols" well, what happens in the bird, stays in bird.

Frankly with that "prang" and it was all very poor pilot proficiency / judgement the MOT investigators let the pilot off way to lightly (well in the media) she "boxed" herself in and with full fuel load (it was a short hop out of Van) the S 76 is not a good performer on vertical departure. Kicking over tail blind and in such tight quarters, well all I can say is was her lucky day.

Dear Happy getting a patient "fast to a hospital" or "new at a contract" is a very poor defence, with minimum of 5 lives and a 12 million dollar bird "mission uninformed pilots" is proven to be the safest for all concerned.

Can I say she was too cocky ?

Can I say there are 2 pilots and one was probably carring semen

[tniuqs]

In this case, the pilots failed, the crew failed, the bystanders failed, the LZ officers failed, the fire guys watching this all unfold failed. The level of failure evident in this video is so amazingly horrific that it's just downright disgusting.

There are many reasons why a helicopter won't take off straight up. Wind direction, weight, humidity, temperature, available power and more play into the decision making process and physics of rotor wing flight. None of those factors are known in this video.

What do you do? Fire the pilots. Hell, I'd consider firing the med crew, too. They're just as responsible for aircraft, crew and patient safety as the pilots are and they failed miserably. I'd do retraining of all the EMS/Fire organizations in the area with regards to LZ selection, hazards and aircraft safety.

There is no excuse for what happened in this video. They are exceptionally lucky that nobody was hurt or died as a result.

BANG on assessment !

FYI the firehall with a huge parking lot was 2 or 3 blocks away.

Edited July 23, 2011 by tniuqs

[JakeEMTP]

That's the one. I still can't believe they let that happen. And they're lucky to have landed in the field like that. It could've been so much worse.

Where they landed the second time, was a much superior LZ than the first. Question for you Mike, I personally have never witnessed a helo shut down @ an LZ. I don't know if that is common to BC or is common practice. Is that the way your crew is on scene? Help me out would ya?

[paramedicmike]

Where they landed the second time, was a much superior LZ than the first. Question for you Mike, I personally have never witnessed a helo shut down @ an LZ. I don't know if that is common to BC or is common practice. Is that the way your crew is on scene? Help me out would ya?

I agree. The open field where they ended up is where they should've landed to begin with. I've worked in the same model aircraft as what's pictured there. It can more than handle the terrain.

Generally, we don't shut down unless it's an extended on scene time (long extrication or the like). Otherwise, we leave it running on the ground. Most of our scene flights have us on the ground less than ten minutes.

We do have one aircraft that we shut down pretty much anywhere we land but that's only because the exhaust coming out of it is horrific.

There are some programs out there that do shut down no matter what. From my observations that practice is not common. I've heard mixed arguments for and against it. I've heard mixed reviews from ground crews regarding excessive time needed for shut down/start up programs... usually negative. That's another discussion.

Hope this helps.

[BushyFromOz]

There are some programs out there that do shut down no matter what. From my observations that practice is not common. I've heard mixed arguments for and against it. I've heard mixed reviews from ground crews regarding excessive time needed for shut down/start up programs... usually negative. That's another discussion.

Interesting. Here, a hot load would be a very rare beast indeed. never seen one, only heard of one in 3 years

[Happiness]

In BC it is policy to shut down. I will not do a hot load here and one reason other than policy is that we have alot funny winds that come off beach that may push the blades downward.

[tniuqs]

Hot or Cold load .. an interesting topic.

In BC there are only 4 contracted helos and vast majority of Helo use "out of the bush" is done by the closest bird, typically the A-STAR, or the Bell 206 Longranger which suck as medivac platforms and when medivac is done by "hit an miss" operators and PCP the attendant. So the COLD Load is the safest options IMHO. STARS in AB does HOT LOADS with BK 117 clam shell doors, policy is first officer is safety man so no one walks into tail rotor .. the real show stopper.

In this situation a fellow had a fall from height while pruning trees, packaging could have been the reason for cold load but I wasn't on scene, in the news many couch pilots commenting but the vid speaks for itself quite clearly. The fact that BCAS has no "crew chief" training with "head on a swivel" and door open on departure, thing is wire strikes are a huge killer with helo ops.

NB: That S 78 doesn't even have line strike protection ... folly in any HEMS show.

That said: In Canada with twin pilot IFR, twin engine, mission uninformed all mandatory in the RFP for the HEMS contracts, but the safety record's speak for themselves, in the USA also speak for themselves. I can only recall of 2 wrecks (in 15 years) ORNGE in Ontario put one in the bush on very short final with injuries but BOTH birds were S 76. This bird in my personal evaluation is old, underpowered, was never designed for HEMS, it was designed for offshore for crew change out. The awarding of the contract in BC is VERY controversial, the so called "non-profits" whining (but look at the breakdowns in operational budgets) is also rather reviling.

Funny how a thread started on blood products in HEMS (media poorly researched sensationalizing) morphs into something completely different, oh and it is my fault taking a poke at BCAS (look something shiney ) But wouldn't it be nice that a Health Minister would actually read the free unsolicited comments to open their eyes ?

cheers