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A DAY IN THE LIFE
Below is an account recording a day at work with Aircrew Officer Rod Edwards based at EMQ Helicopter Rescue Base at Archerfield, Brisbane.
Rod joined EMQ Helicopter Rescue in April of 1991 after working as a volunteer Crew Officer with Gold Coast Helicopter Rescue Service (now Careflight, Gold Coast) for 9 years. Rod is a qualified electrician and prior to his employment with the EMQ Helicopter Rescue he spent 3 years employed as a Police Officer and six years as a Professional Lifeguard with the Gold Coast City Council.
I was rostered for day shift commencing 0800hours with Pilot Rodger Cooper, Rescue Crew Officer Bruce Fairlie, Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) Intensive Care Paramedic Lachlan Parker and Emergency Care Doctor Steve Rashford.
The night crew returned to base at 0700 hours following a retrieval of an 18 year old burns patient from Toowoomba to the Royal Brisbane Hospital (RBH). The Bell 412 was still undergoing major scheduled maintenance and would be offline for another 3 weeks, so we were utilising EMQ’s latest fleet addition, the Eurocopter EC 135. The little 135 had certainly earned its keep over the past month or so. During the month of September it completed a total of 76 tasks including 45 Inter Hospital Transfers and 25 Primary Medical Transfers for a total of 103 engine hours. For this reason, coupled with the fact that it was a beautiful spring Sunday in South East Queensland, both Rodger and I were expecting a busy day.
We didn’t have to wait long, we had all just completed our daily checks when the emergency line rang at 0829hrs. A lady staying at the Tangalooma Resort had suffered some type of neurological problem and we were required to retrieve her to the RBH. We were airbourne at 0844hrs for the 17 minute flight across the eastern suburbs and Northern Moreton Bay. The day was fine with a smoke haze over the city which cleared as we got to the bay, the Brisbane air traffic controller asked us to track via Manly Boat Harbour then Mud Island.
The wind was a 15 knot northerly, so Rodger set up for an approach from the South, parallel to the beach. There were quite a few surprised morning walkers as we approached over the beach and onto the second pad, behind a Bell 47 on tourist duties at the resort. The Ambulance met us at the pad, where Steve and Lachlan quickly assessed and treated the patient while Rodger and I prepared the aircraft. We were soon flying the return leg to the RBH.
After delivering our patient to the RBH, we returned to base at approximately 1040hrs. By the time we had refueled, restocked and reconfigured it was 1115hrs. We decided to have an early lunch, which was a good decision as our next task came in at 1248 hours. We were being placed on standby to retrieve a hang glider who had landed heavily at Boyland approximately 25 nautical miles to the Southeast of Archerfield. Rodger and I had been to a similar incident the week before in the Numinbah Valley in the Gold Coast Hinterland. Bruce quickly towed the machine out and we were ready to go at 1300hrs however, there was no QAS unit on scene initially so there was a slight delay in our activation. We were finally airborne at 1316hrs.
The QAS communication centre had given us a fairly accurate GPS position which indicated a location just west of the North Tamborine Township at the foot of the hills. We identified the Ambulance in a field and set up to land in a paddock 60 metres from the patient. We touched down at 1331hrs, Steve and Lachlan went straight out to assess and treat the patient, while we shut the aircraft down and prepared the aircraft for loading.
It appeared that the unfortunate hang glider had clipped a wire fence on landing and had a possible fractured right femur.
We had no sooner completed configuring the aircraft when Steve, Lachlan and the attending Ambulance Paramedics were carrying the patient over to the aircraft ready to load. With the load completed we lifted off at 1354hrs, which meant our scene time was a little over 20 minutes. The RBH was 17 minutes flight time and by 1412hrs we were landing back on Alpha pad at RBH.
While waiting on the pad at the hospital we were given another tasking to an injured mountain bike rider in the Christmas Creek area. We notified Bruce that we required refueling upon return to Archerfield. By 1450hrs we were airborne again heading for Christmas Creek. We were just a few miles from Archerfield when the first Ambulance arrived on scene they advised that we were not required. So Rodger turned the helicopter around and headed back to base.
At 1546hrs we were given our fourth task, a serious traffic accident at the junction of the Kilcoy – Maleny and the Kilcoy – Beerwah Roads. We departed at 1554hrs, enroute we received details of our landing area and Steve and Lachlan received clinical details from the scene. At least 2 patients had critical injuries.
The Police and the Firefighters had closed off one of the main roads and we located the accident site easily. A Police Officer popped a smoke flare just as Rodger was trying to identify the wind direction for landing, we landed on the road at 1619hrs. A quick survey of the scene showed 2 badly damaged cars and a motorcycle lying on the road. A father and son had been on the motorcycle and both had serious injuries. Steve and Lachlan in consultation with the clinical co-ordinator decided we were to take the father.
We were airborne at 1639hrs, again with a scene time of just over 20 minutes. The patient’s condition meant that Steve and
Lachlan were kept extremely busy on return leg. Our instructions were to fly directly to the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH). We expedited the shut down and unloading at PA to give the patient every chance of survival.
We returned to base at 1810hrs, which completed a fairly full day.
We learnt a few days later that the gentleman we had picked up on the Kilcoy – Maleny Road had indeed survived and was beginning his long road to recovery.
It’s definitely one of those jobs were day to day you never know what you will be going to or where you will end up, but I guess most of us like it that way.
Last updated 13 May 2009
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