Medevac: Flying the Irish Air Corps HEMS Mission

by Declan Daly

'I notice a flurry of activity in the back and Pat calls ‘Cab off’ – he wants to isolate the comms in the back from the cockpit. I look over my shoulder and see Luke starting chest compressions on the previously stable patient who has gone into cardiac arrest just as we touched down. As this is Paul’s first real job, I decide to keep this to myself and we run through the shutdown checks as normal in the cockpit – you never know how people will react the first time this happens around them and it’s usually quickest and safest to just get things done like you always would. By the time the engines wind down enough to hear what’s happening in the back, the patient is alive again and moaning at Luke to stop hurting her chest. This is all normal; the lads take it perfectly in their stride.' Medevac is a description of flying the HEMS, or air ambulance, mission of the Irish Air Corps. Written from a pilots point of view, the book goes through the authors experience in setting up, training and flying Irish Air Corps helicopters in this role. Different points of interest are illustrated with accounts of some of the more interesting flights from the seven hundred plus tasks flown by the author since the inception of the service in Ireland in 2012.

182 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 4, 2019