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Our Critical Care Cars celebrate an anniversary Before the full impact of a global pandemic became apparent and we went into the fi rst lockdown, Devon Air Ambulance’s two Critical Care Cars went ‘live’ and this timely introduction has meant we never lost a day’s service
1 YEAR 550MISSIONS
One y r on – we c brate the fi rst a iversary of our Cr cal Care Cars
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Back in February 2020 – just before the country went into the One year on – we celebrate the fi rst fi rst national lockdown – Devon Air Ambulance introduced two rapid response Critical Care Cars anniversary of our Critical Care Cars (CCCs) to our fl eet and we attended our fi rst ‘live’ operation by 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 offl ine 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 fi nd 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
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Darren Goodwin, Operations Manager for Devon Air Ambulance
deliver exactly the same treatments to their patients at the scene, regardless of whether they arrive by helicopter or car.
All Devon Air Ambulance paramedics who drive the CCCs have also undertaken Emergency Ambulance Response Driver training, sometimes known as ‘blue light’ training which has provided them with the skills they need to drive our CCCs quickly and safely to reach their patients as soon as possible.
Darren Goodwin, Operations Manager for Devon Air Ambulance, refl ects on how the introduction of our Critical Care Cars enabled us to build resilience into our service during an unprecedented year.
“During the early stages of the pandemic we temporarily suspended responding by helicopter while we made them ‘COVID safe’. Our newly introduced Critical Care Cars proved to be invaluable when we couldn’t get airborne and ensured we were still able to respond to patients without losing a day’s service”.
Our initial estimate was that we might respond to about 200 incidents in our fi rst year by CCC but, since that fi rst mission in March 2020, we have actually been tasked over 550 times!”.
Darren added “I am convinced that introducing these cars to our service when we did has enabled us to help hundreds of extra
patients over the last year.”
Jeanette Griggs, Special Vehicles Manager at Volvo UK agreed “We are so proud to support Devon Air Ambulance. The fact that their cars have clocked up over 550 missions in their fi rst year is a testament to the importance of the service the Charity provides”.
