An Cosantóir

15 difference in the reduction of ground-transport time can make a vast difference to the patient. On Saturday morning 15 October 2016, I was the duty AW139 P1 (aircraft commander) on standby when I received a call at 10:45 that a potential neonatal air ambulance to London might be requested. I alerted the rest of the flight crew, Lt Neil Dunne and Sgt Alan Martin and met them in the Helicopter Operations Room to begin planning the flight while our two helicopter technicians began preparing the standby aircraft, AW279. Within a few minutes the task went from 'potential' to 'live', and I contacted the consultant from the Coombe Hospital, Dr Jan Franta to offer him a transit directly into London City Centre (at that point I didn't know the destination hospital, and therefore whether the heliport would be appropriate). Jan has been involved with neonatal air ambulance transfers for many years, and was well aware of the lengthy ambulance time from Northolt or Heathrow, so he jumped at the idea of landing somewhere with only a 15 minute transit time to the hospital. We were also to carry two neonatal nurses, Geraldine Walsh and Anita Cako, and of course our little VIP passenger, Sophia Murphy. At 11:25 we could hear an ambulance siren approaching Baldonnel, and a minute later the HSE ambulance was escorted over to the waiting AW139 by the Military Police. Within a few minutes the incubator was secured into the aircraft cabin, all oxygen and other medical systems and equipment checked functioning correctly, the medical crew briefed, baby Sophia comfortable, and then we were airborne, heading straight for London. Because it was a Saturday, the military firing ranges along the Welsh coast were inactive, and so we were able to fly straight through them. However, a Saturday also meant that there was a significant amount of general aviation light aircraft up on pleasure flights all over the UK, which don't always appear at the altitude they say they're at. Luckily the weather was initially very good, and so we were able to fly high above these 'weekend warriors' until getting close to London, when the weather deteriorated significantly. We were directed to the Brent Reservoir for the Northern join to the heli routes, and had to dodge clouds and poor visibility along the way. At one point some large low clouds lay directly in our path (going down to about 300 feet above the rooftops below) and so we NEONATAL AIR AMBULANCE had to request permission from Heathrow radar to move 300 metres left to avoid it. This permission was tentatively given, but a few seconds later as we passed the low clouds, the controller asked how many more seconds we needed to be off course. We were being watched closely! We landed at Battersea at 13:41, and were met by an NHS ambulance and police escort, and a little after 14:00 the baby was arriving into Great Ormond Street Hospital. Between the AW139's fast cruise speed of 150 knots indicated airspeed and the proximity of the heliport to the city hospital (and our ability to use it), the total time from leaving Baldonnel to arriving in the doors of the hospital was a little over 2 hours. This air ambulance represented the first time ever that an Irish air ambulance flew directly into London City Centre by way of Battersea Heliport. The various training flights to the heliport were worth it as we heard that baby Sophia had been delivered safely and comfortably to the intensive care unit in preparation for her operation. After re-fuelling at the heliport, we made use of the facility's coffee and snacks area and prepped for the flight home, joined for a time by members of the band 'One Direction' (or 'One Dimension' as I mistakenly called them) while they waited for their helicopter. A couple of hours later the medical team arrived back at the heliport and we departed for Baldonnel, landing back in Dublin at 18:15, having flown the latter part of the flight home on night vision goggles. Jan and the team were delighted with the outcome of the transfer, remarking that for some critically ill children, the ability to use Battersea was a 'game changer'. We were happy in that we had been given an opportunity to successfully test and prove the effectiveness of using London Heliport with AW139s on emergency air ambulances for the first time, and paved a path for future such transfers. Lt Col David Browne is an AW139 commander and currently the Officer Commanding Air Corps College. Read more about the AW139 here - A wider view on downtown London Westminster Abbey & the London Eye from 1,500ft https://www.military.ie/!4AY9Y4

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