FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1702.PDF
45O FLIGHT OCTOBER 14TH, 1948 Paramedical Aid the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, whilst the doctor and nursing orderlies are, of course, R.A.F. personnel. The demonstration was made at the Training School's dropping field at Weston-on-the-Green, before the critical gaze of Air Marshal P. C. Livingstone, C.B., C.B.E., A.F.C., F.R.C.S., Director-General of Medical Services, R.A.F., and of Miss Helen Wilson Cargill, R.R.C., Matron-in-Chief of Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service. Both the Director-General and the Matron-in-Chief expressed themselves as being more than pleased with the work dpne. In the centre of the airfield at Weston, a square white target was pegged down about 250 yards across wind from the "casualties." The Dakota, from which the team were to drop, first made a dummy run across the target, and then, on its second run, dropped a drifter, i.e., a member of the Parachute Training School staff, who made his descent without applying correction, and so determined the drift to be expected. The surface wind was light and steady at about 5 m.p.h. and, as the drops were made from about 800ft, the landings were all made within roughly 100 yards of the marker target. Action Procedure On the third run up, the pilot kept the Dakota in the eye of the wind, and the first team then made their drops. First out was the medical officer, followed at one- second intervals by the orderlies, each with a kitbag dangling 20ft below on a lanyard, and then by the two nursing sisters. As the team descended, an instructor gave them corrections by means of a portable loud-hailer unit, the speakers of which were trained upward. The landings made, the parachutists rolled over, gathered up the '' bottom'' shroud lines to spill the wind from the' canopies, unbuckled their harness and, leaving their para- chutes to be gathered up later, ran the intervening 300 yards to the casualties. The time from the first man leaving the aircraft to the team reaching their patients was a little under four minutes. By the time that the first team had reached the casualties, the second team were making their drops, following exactly the same procedure. There were three "casualties"—volunteer airmen from the School—all of whom entered fully into the spirit of the exercise, despite their appearance at times of bearing their simulated suffering with extraordinarily cheerful fortitude. The first rnan was supposed to have suffered a frac- tured femur, the second was supposed to have sustained severe chest injuries, whilst the third was supposedly suffer- ing from severe lacerations to the scalp, and concussion. In what appeared to be virtually no time at all, the medical equipment was removed from the kitbags, water was heated over a small Primus-type stove, dressings were taken from sterilizing cans, and tip man with the broken The Matron-in-Chief of Princess Mary's R.A.F. Nursing Service, Miss Helen Wilson Cargill, poses beside Air Marshal P. C. Lr/ingstone, C.B., the Director-General of Medical Services, Royal Air Force. Each nursing orderly is preceded by a kitbag of equipment, on a 20-ft lanyard. thigh had it bound up in a St. Thomas's splint, whilst hiscompanions in adversity were respectively given a blood transfusion and a drink. As previously stated, we had to imagine that some of the larger equipment used had already been dropped before the descent of the medical teams. This equipment com- prised the stretchers, and a large, walled, pitched-roof tent to serve as a shelter and operating theatre. The stretchers were quickly assembled, blankets unpacked and swathed round the patients, parachutes rolled up and used as pillows, and the tent speedily erected by the orderlies, whilst pre- liminary attention was being given to the patients. As a demonstration of the working of a service only but a few weeks' old, this was a singularly impressive thing to see. First Possible Aid Air Marshal Livingstone, who earlier this year was appointed an Honorary Surgeon to the King, said that, although the new parachute medical service had obvious applications in time of war, its functions were equally as important in peace. Aircraft have been known to crash in the most inaccessible places, at times in conditions of weather, as well as terrain, which make it impossible for aid to reach possible survivors for many hours, sometimes even days. Parachute medical teams can be on the spot with a minimum of delay and, whilst this does not purport to be anything other than first-aid, it does qualify for the term "first possible aid" and, by the very nature of the equipment and personnel used, invests the term with an importance far in advance of that normallv implied. B 4
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
