Air Ambulance reveals story of challenging year
DEVON Air Ambulance (DAA) has released its mission statistics for 2020, showing how much the medical service was used in a year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Throughout the year, the charity was tasked to attend more than 1,500 incidents across Devon – a figure which does not take into account numerous calls to assist incidents in neighbouring counties.
Of those missions, 590 were to help patients with medical emergencies, meaning those suffering with a medical condition.
There were also 912 trauma-related incidents, which are injuries caused by slips, trips, falls, burns and collisions to name just a few.
Crews assisted 607 male and 261 female patients, plus 68 children who also needed their expert care.
July was DAA’s busiest month of the year and Sunday their busiest day of the week. This is thought to be due to people taking time out for hobbies and pastimes at the weekend, as well as those carrying out home improvement plans that do not always go as smoothly as intended.
Two of the most common sporting groups they were tasked to were equestrian related (38) and cyclists (29).
Nigel Hare, patient services operations director, admitted the year had been a uniquely difficult one for them.
“Following the initial reduction in call outs to patients during the first lock down, 2020 has been both busy and challenging for our service,” Mr Hare said.
“The school summer holiday period is always busy for Devon Air Ambulance, but in 2020 the demand for our service remained very high from April right through to October.
Although November brought a brief return to normal levels, the number of patients we have deployed to in December, and so far during January this year, has been similar to the number of patients we normally respond to in the summer.”
Times have changed from the old way of thinking that the air ambulance simply collects a patient and delivers them quickly to hospital.
Today, the service is about highly skilled critical care paramedics and doctors delivering advanced lifesaving treatment and interventions on-scene, stabilising a patient and then transporting them to the hospital which offers the specialist treatment needed to provide the patient with the best possible outcome.
The DAA medical team conveyed 184 patients by air in 2020, but also accompanied 271 patients on their journey to hospital in a land ambulance so they could continue to observe, monitor and treat them with the enhanced care they needed until their arrival at hospital.
Being tasked to 406 incidents, the two rapid response critical care cars introduced by DAA in February 2020 have also made a significant contribution to the service.
Kitted out with blue lights and the same medical equipment found on board the helicopters, these vehicles can provide a swift response to patients and can sometimes access heavily built-up areas more easily than the air ambulance, which needs an open space to land safely.
They also enabled the service to keep responding to medical emergencies
‘Year 2020 has been both busy and challenging for our service’ NIGEL HARE
when the helicopters were temporarily stood down in March last year to be made Covid-safe.
Night landing sites have also proved invaluable in the past year as 207 missions took place during the hours of darkness.
The charity now has over 160 landing sites situated throughout the county which provide a safe place to land away from unseen obstacles, enabling the pilot to bring a life-saving service into the heart of those communities until 2am.
A community landing site is developed and part-funded by the local community, and could be located on a green, field, sports pitch or playing field.
DAA is always keen to hear from any local communities who are interested in finding out more about them and you can contact Toby Russell, DAA’s Community Landing Site Officer at t.russell@daat.org.
If you would like to support your local air ambulance, visit www.daat.org.