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Articles for tag REACH




Nov
09
2020

From Fragile to Formidable: 77 Years of Helicopter EMS

Posted by Admin

1943 was the first year that helicopters were used to perform emergency medical services (Helicopter EMS; aka HEMS). According to The Smithsonian Institution’s magazine Air & Space, it was a Sikorsky YR-4B flown by the U.S. Army in Asia that conducted the first HEMS mission in April 1944. The two-seater YR-4B flown by Carter Harman rescued three wounded U.K. Commandos and a downed pilot from the Burmese jungle, lofting one at a time to safety using four separate flights. Since then, helicopters have become essential civilian/military ‘air ambulances.’ The road from that relatively fragile YR-4B to today’s formidable HEMS machines made by Airbus, Bell, Leonardo, MD Helicopters, and Sikorsky (now part of Lockheed Martin) has not been a smooth one. It took persuasion and performance to convince skeptics that helicopters belonged in the EMS realm. [Read More...]



Tags: Air Evac Lifeteam Flight For Life in 1972 History of EMS Helicopters Med-Trans REACH Sikorsky YR-4B
Categories: categoryOpinion-Editorial