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Medevacs becoming more frequent fliers
By Reid Kanaley and Dawn Fallik - Inquirer Staff Writers
Medical helicopters, once a startling and exceptional sight at accident scenes, are almost commonplace in parts of the region.
In Chester and Montgomery Counties, the use of helicopters to whisk trauma victims to hospitals has risen sharply, to nearly five flights a day.
Experts give a variety of reasons for the increase, including the closing of Chester County's only trauma center, the critical shortage of neurosurgeons, and rapid population growth.
Frequently, "swoop and scoop" medevacs are the only way to get the severely injured to life-saving treatment in Philadelphia or elsewhere within the so-called golden hour when it does the most good.
A helicopter can cut what would be an hour-long road trip to just minutes.
Emergency flights in Chester County went from 123 in 2001, the year before Brandywine Hospital, near Coatesville, closed its trauma center, to 662 last year.
Rest HERE
By Reid Kanaley and Dawn Fallik - Inquirer Staff Writers
Medical helicopters, once a startling and exceptional sight at accident scenes, are almost commonplace in parts of the region.
In Chester and Montgomery Counties, the use of helicopters to whisk trauma victims to hospitals has risen sharply, to nearly five flights a day.
Experts give a variety of reasons for the increase, including the closing of Chester County's only trauma center, the critical shortage of neurosurgeons, and rapid population growth.
Frequently, "swoop and scoop" medevacs are the only way to get the severely injured to life-saving treatment in Philadelphia or elsewhere within the so-called golden hour when it does the most good.
A helicopter can cut what would be an hour-long road trip to just minutes.
Emergency flights in Chester County went from 123 in 2001, the year before Brandywine Hospital, near Coatesville, closed its trauma center, to 662 last year.
Rest HERE