There are several fascinating facts about the US air ambulance industry that people hardly know about. Here, we bright to light some of these facts.
- US air ambulance services respond to an emergency roughly every 90 seconds, and in all, about 500 thousand patients are transported via these life-saving flights every year.
- About 150 thousand patients are rescued directly from accident sites by US air ambulance services and about 350 thousand patients are transported between hospitals.
- The average speed of an air ambulance is a whopping 2 miles every minute, much faster than the ground ambulances.
- US air ambulance services make receiving of timely treatment possible and consequently the length of hospitalization is considerably reduced, reveal studies.
- About 38% of the population in the country have timely trauma care access only because of medical flight services.
- In the United States, medical flights were first used in the year 1926 and that too by the nation’s army. The length of the flight was 150 miles.
- A US air ambulance was first used to aid a critically injured patient in the year 1970 and the task was undertaken by Maryland State Police aviation program.
- The very first civilian operated US air ambulance service was started by St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado. The year was 1972.
- It is estimated that about 50 million people in the US would not have Level 1 or Level 2 trauma care access in the absence of air ambulance services.
- The disease conditions for which US air ambulance services are most often used are: heart attacks, severe trauma and strokes. All of these conditions are considered extremely time sensitive.
- Contrary to the belief that US air ambulance services mainly cater to sparsely populated areas, there is a high demand for them in densely populated areas too. The reason behind this is the inability of ground ambulances to navigate through thick traffic due to emergencies.
