Encounters Mission report
Ticinesi precision work
11
Salorino (Canton Ticino), 16.02.2020
A mountain biker is out with a group on Monte Generoso. Suddenly he veers off the trail and plunges down a steep slope. Dense forest makes rescue difficult, but the experienced Ticino crew succeed in evacuating the casualty from the i nhospitable terrain using the rescue hoist. A sunny Sunday in mid-February: the highest peaks are still covered in snow, but lower down the first signs of the coming spring are visible. The temperatures south of the Alps are already pleasantly mild, Switzerland has not yet recorded a single Coronavirus patient, and many people are spending the day outdoors, enjoying sports or other leisure activities. The crew at Rega’s helicopter base in Locarno are standing by: experience has shown that on days with weather conditions like these, the rescue helicopter is called out several times. After the morning briefing, each crew member carries out various tasks at the base. These are set out in a weekly schedule and range from the checking of the medication by the emergency physician to the cleaning of the helicopter or the hangar by the entire crew.
Then, at 11am, the first emergency call of the day: the Rega Operations Centre requests the Ticino crew to go to the aid of an injured mountain biker. He had been on a bike tour on Monte Generoso with some friends when he veered off the trail and plunged down a slope. Pilot Corrado Sasselli checks the situation at the accident scene on a map, based on the information provided by the Operations Centre: “The patient was lying in a densely wooded, practically inaccessible area. Under these circumstances, landing the helicopter was out of the question. We therefore decided to evacuate him using the rescue hoist,” Corrado Sasselli explains. In order not to lose any time, the crew of “Rega 6”, as the Ticino base is known, prepare for the use of the rescue hoist before taking off from Magadino Airport. The emergency physician already puts on the harness, to which the hoist carabiner will later be attached.
If the helicopter cannot land close to the casualty, the rescue hoist is used.
Poorly accessible accident site
During the flight to the scene of the accident, Rega’s Operations Centre sets up a conference call between the crew and one of the casualty’s biking companions, who knows exactly where his friend is. The man waits for the helicopter at the agreed location, a clearing near the
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