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helipad | www.daat.org
SIONS S I M 0 5 1 Y EA R 5 One year on – we celebrate the first anniversary of our Critical Care Cars
B
ack in February 2020 – just before the country went into the first national lockdown – Devon Air year on – we celebrate first Ambulance introducedOne two rapid response Critical Carethe Cars anniversary of ourour Critical Care Cars by (CCCs) to our fleet and we attended first ‘live’ operation car on the 3rd March 2020. Our CCCs are primarily located at each of our airbases in Exeter and Eaglescott in North Devon. This means our crews can use the vehicles should our helicopters be offline for any reason, such as adverse weather, mechanical fault or during periods of planned maintenance. Devon is predominantly a rural county with hundreds of remote villages and hamlets, winding country lanes and expansive moors, and our two helicopters are often best suited to deliver our critical care teams quickly to these locations. However, on some occasions, it can actually be quicker for the team to reach a patient by road when
an incident is close to one of our airbases or is in a particularly heavily built-up urban area where finding a suitable open space to land may be more challenging. Our two Volvo XC90 cars have high-performance hybrid engines which ensure stable handling at speed over rough road surfaces and, as a 4-wheel drive vehicle, they are ideal for going off-road into the Devon countryside if needed. The cars are also huge inside, with lots of ample seating to accommodate our medical teams, a large boot for all their kit and medical equipment and extra space which is proving particularly useful at the moment to store the necessary PPE supplies that our clinicians require. Each vehicle carries the same advanced medical equipment that you would find onboard the helicopter, such as ventilators, advanced patient monitoring and LypPlas (freeze dried plasma to treat severe blood loss) so our highly trained and experienced clinical team can
“ On some occasions, it can actually be quicker for the team to reach a patient by road when an incident is close to one of our airbases or is in a particularly heavily built-up urban area ”
