Flying To The Rescue Is All In A Day's Work

The Age

Thursday August 29, 1996

AMBULANCE officers who fly with Air Ambulance Victoria are called out on some unusual jobs, but nothing quite compares to one Phil Hogan had a few days back.

He flew up to Quilpie, in west Queensland, to pick up an injured 29-year-old ``buckjumper" who had been thrown by a mechanical bull.

The man, who comes from Hamilton, in Western Victoria, was on the annual Variety Club's Chadstone-to-Darwin bash and was riding the ``bull" in an outback Queensland pub.

``They had to have a go on the bull and they could earn more points as part of the rally," said Hogan, a flight paramedic who's been with the Air Ambulance for more than 10 years.

``And he unfortunately got thrown off and he injured his back."

The man spent a week in the local 10-bed bush nursing hospital unable to walk so it was decided he should be flown back to Hamilton Base Hospital.

It was a five-hour flight up for Hogan and ambulance pilot David Mills, via Charlieville where they picked up fuel, before returning to Quilpie to pick up their patient.

They didn't have far to go once they got there. As Hogan said: ``The airstrip was just outside town. There was the strip, some cattle yards, then the town."

The trip back, this time via Mildura where they stopped to refuel, then on to Hamilton, took eight hours. ``It was a long trip," said Hogan, soon after landing at Essendon Airport.

Last week was an exceptionally busy one for Victoria's air ambulance. The trip to collect the buckjumper was the third to Queensland in as many days.

``This time of the year is one of our busiest times for bringing people back from Queensland," said Air Ambulance Victoria manager Ken Laycock.

It is the time of the big Victorian exodus to the sun.

``People driving up there either get sick or are involved in accidents, older people mostly, getting sick on holidays, " says Laycock, explaining the reason for the trips north.

But a trip to Queensland, or any other state for that matter, is not uncommon for the Air Ambulance, which works in conjunction with the Victorian Regional Ambulance Service, transporting patients over long distances.

It has five twin-engined Cessna Titan 404 air ambulances fitted with two stretchers and medical equipment.

According to a spokesperson, it's not unusual for a country patient to be picked up in the morning and flown to Melbourne for an out-patient's appointment and returned home that night, a trip of 700 or 800 kilometres.

But three trips to Queensland in the one week, according to Mr Laycock, is ``very unusual".

The ambulance made its first trip on Monday to Maroochydore where it picked up a medical patient, then called at Coffs Harbor on the way back to pick up a second patient, arriving back at Essendon on Tuesday.

That same day, another aircraft was dispatched north, this time to Coolangatta, where the crew stayed overnight before bringing back another two patients on Wednesday.

Then it was back again on Thursday for the buckjumper.

``That's the busiest we have ever been up there," Mr Laycock said.

Air Ambulance Victoria started operating on 1 May 1962, covering Victoria, southern NSW and Bass Strait.

The first year the service carried 12 patients, mostly from the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. It now transports about 3000 patients a year.

The rotary wing ambulance division started with the Angel of Mercy helicopter at Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula, in December 1970.

Today, Ambulance Victoria operates two Bell 412 ambulance helicopters, one based at La Trobe Valley Airport and the other at Essendon.

© 1996 The Age

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