I'm old enough to have done this with a fixed wing aircraft with only my medical bag for emergencies, but now they use helicopters with equipment which allows the medics to treat the patient at the scene and during the flight.
Blackfive has a link about the most dangerous medevac unit in the world: In Afghanistan, where not only might you get shot down , but the weather and terrain make the flight itself dangerous.
The flight crews of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment,
25th Combat Aviation Brigade, pose in front of a UH-60 Black Hawk
located in Pasab, Afghanistan, in late September.
(Photo by Sgt. Randy Ojeda/25th Combat Aviation Brigade Public Affairs)
The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade
“The harder days are when we have to go pick up kids,” said James, as he stared down at his feet. “It hits close to home. I picked up a girl once who looked just like my daughter.”
The crews started to discuss other challenges at Pasab, ranging from extreme, dusty environments to the threat of land mines on landing zones and common instances of random gun fire.
The discussion turned to treating Afghan National Army soldiers.
“Treating local nationals can be a challenge,” said James explaining they sometimes resist treatment. “Some have never seen a helicopter and they get scared, and on top of that we have the language barrier. But we push through it, we do our job and we are successful.”
The Pasab medevac crews have a 98-percent success rate of retrieving, treating and transporting their patients to a medical facility within the golden hour.
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