Great Western Air Ambulance busy over Christmas
THE Great Western Air Ambulance was kept busy during the festive period.
The crew was called out 11 times on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and dealt with nine patients.
But the manager of Great Western Air Ambulance (GWAA), Danny Hopkins said it was positive that the team had been able to make a real difference with the incidents they had attended.
On Christmas Eve the team were able to get a 74-year-old man breathing after he had suffered a heart attack, sedate a patient to get her fractured leg into a more appropriate position and help a patient who had been fitting some time.
Mr Hopkins said: "We were able to make a real difference to patient outcomes at the jobs we went to on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and that is what we are here for.
"It is all about patient outcomes and we had three successes with patients who had good outcomes that could not have been achieved if our team had not attended the incidents."
GWAA sends critical care paramedics, who have additional skills, to incidents, along with emergency doctors so they can provide A&E standard care to the patient wherever they are.
The team can give drugs that are not usually available to paramedics and carry out procedures that would normally only be carried out at hospital emergency departments.
It means that in the most serious of cases, the GWAA crew can do more for patients straight away rather than work starting when they arrive at hospital.
2 Comments
by HW, Bristol
Monday, December 29 2008, 8:30PM
“Mike, I am the daughter of the lady who was sedated following a fall. I can assure that the air ambulance team were vital to the ability of the ambulance team to be able to move her. All of the staff who turned up were fantastic.”
by Mike B, Bristol
Sunday, December 28 2008, 6:55PM
“Air Ambulance called out 11 times ? Surely that ain't right. I thought they were only used to rescue patients in inaccessible places like Mountains, Cliffs. Motorway jams and the like, and I haven't seen any news on the Telly to reinforce that news the BEP has here in this article. I'm puzzled.”