An F-16 fighter jet delivered when speed mattered most.
In a life-saving mission, a Norwegian fighter jet transported medical equipment from one hospital to another in the country last April 4, stated media reports. The critically ill patient needed a specialized lung and heart treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to survive.
The hospital where the patient was admitted to lacked this equipment, and it was situated in the town of Bodø in central Norway. But another one in Trondheim, found 450 kilometers (about 300 miles) to the south, had the machine, prompting staff to seek airforce’s help to transport it.
The timing was impeccable as two F-16 fighter jets were just gearing for takeoff from an airbase near Trondheim. One of the jets had an external hold for transporting equipment.
“They didn’t ask questions, except for what size the machine was,” said chief medical doctor Anders Wetting Carlsen of Saint Olaf Hospital, which sent the machine out to the needy patient.
It was top speed from there as the machine was immediately loaded onto the vehicle, which reached its destination in less than 25 minutes.
That distance usually takes 35 minutes, air squadron head lieutenant colonel Borge Kleppe told local newspaper Verdens Gang. By land, the journey would have also taken 10 hours – precious time that could spell death for the waiting patient.
The medical equipment reached the hospital in Bodø 40 minutes after the call to the airforce was made.
Kleppe, who has been flying these fighter jets for 13 years, recalled that it is not routine for F-16s to carry external storage tanks. Had they received the call a few minutes later, the plane would have already departed.
“It's good to be able to help civil society in this way. And when it became clear that it had such an outcome, it gives an extra good feeling,” Kleppe shared.
The patient was later moved to the University Hospital of Tromsø where heart and lung specialist Dr. Kristian Barnes praised the swift action of the military. He said it was something he had never experienced before – a rare occasion that the life-saving equipment had to be borrowed from a distant facility at such short notice.
Medical emergencies abound worldwide, but timely response makes a whole difference. A 38-year-old Indian man’s heart, for instance, started beating again 45 minutes after it stopped working due to cardiac arrest, thanks to extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), an emergency procedure considered once standard CPR fails.
Photo: Matthew Allen Hecht | Flickr
