New air ambulance boosts service

19 July 2005 09:53

Charity trustees running the region's air ambulance have chosen a replacement helicopter which can fly life-saving night missions.

The East Anglian Air Ambulance trustees have picked a larger and faster model to replace Anglia One, which will allow paramedics to carry more equipment, more people and treat patients better.

Although there are no plans to operate at night, the new model, costing £90,000 a year to run, is capable of it.

The trustees agreed that existing operator, Sterling Aviation, should retain the contract to run the new helicopter and it is hoped it will arrive in the New Year to be flying the skies from April 2006.

Anglia One, which costs £65,000 a year to run, will be kept on as a back-up.

Trustees chairman, Andrew Egerton-Smith said Anglia One “has been a great workhorse” flying 4000 missions since January 2001, covering the area seven days a week.

“The next stage has been to consider a larger aircraft with more room for the paramedics and doctors to carry out advanced procedures not possible in the existing aircraft. The extra room means we will be able to carry an emergency patient and a 'walking wounded' patient or a parent or relative of the casualty.”

Mr Egerton-Smith said the replacement model, the BK117, is widely used as an air ambulance all over the world.

“The high engine means that the cabin of the aircraft is far larger than the existing BO105 and yet its overall size is not much greater. This means that we will still be able to land in tight situations similar to the existing helicopter.

Executive director Simon Gray said: “Ideally, we'd love to be able to keep both aircraft flying and have one in the north and one in the south of the region. But whilst the fundraising continues to go well we would be hard pushed to be able to afford to run both simultaneously.”