At 10 a.m. Thursday, an attendee suddenly fainted during a large international conference being held in a hotel in Nanshan District. It was confirmed that he had suffered from an acute stroke and needed to be sent to a hospital immediately.
However, the heavy traffic near the hotel at the time made it very difficult for an ambulance to arrive quickly. The doctors at the scene immediately called 120 for emergency helicopter rescue.
It took a helicopter only four minutes to get the patient from the hotel to the Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University, which is 10 kilometers from the hotel.
The air rescue, without any delay, was actually an air rescue drill conducted by the city’s health and family planning commission, Shenzhen Center for Prehospital Care, Shenzhen No. 2 People’s Hospital, Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University and Heli-Eastern.
The drill presented a scenario in which a participant suddenly fainted at a large international conference and was in urgent need of transport to a hospital. However, the ambulance got stuck on the road and a helicopter was needed for the rescue.
Between the onset of the patient’s illness and arriving at the hospital, the whole air rescue took only 15 minutes, which is three times faster than the time it would take by ambulance.
“The main purpose of this drill is to explore a long-term emergency rescue mechanism in Shenzhen and to test whether the current rescue system works smoothly,” said Zhang Hua, chief of the 120 dispatch department of the city’s prehospital care center.
For the air rescue Heli-Eastern used an Airbus H135 twin-engine helicopter, which boasts having the “quietest” inner cabin compared with others at the same level.
Also of note, the drill marked the first time that there were medical staffers on board. They have received professional air rescue training and thus are more adapted to the noise, shaking and other uncontrollable factors than ordinary medical staffers.
The drill also provided wireless intercoms for the medical staffers in the helicopter and those on the ground, so that the patient’s condition could be reported to the hospital’s medical staffers in real time.
Last year, Shenzhen was selected by the national authority as one of the pilot cities for adopting air medical rescue nationwide. Six local municipal hospitals with tarmacs were selected as pilot hospitals.
Next, Shenzhen will sign cooperative agreements with companies that have helicopters stationed in the city all year round to carry out routine emergency air services.