HELICOPTER pilot Loren Haisley waits for his Taumarunui patient to arrive at the Eight Mile. Photo Sigrid Christiansen
Winter’s fogs are already impacting King Country air ambulance services.
Early on Wednesday morning, a Hamilton-based rescue crew was forced to wait near Piopio for a patient transfer.
Sharni Weir, fundraising and marketing manager with the Westpac Rescue Helicopter team, said the patient’s condition had necessitated an airlift.
“This morning, [the helicopter] was tasked by Taumarunui Hospital to transport a man in his 90s who was suffering from a serious medical event.
“The Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter was unable to land at Taumarunui Hospital due to low lying fog but instead was able to land at Eight Mile Junction where the patient was collected and transported via road ambulance to the [helicopter].”
The journey from Taumarunui had taken 35 minutes, Sharni said.
“The patient was then transported within 19 minutes to Waikato Hospital for further treatment.”
In winter, this kind of delay was not unusual, the crew said.
It was standard aviation safety procedure not to land without ground visibility, they told King Country News.
Medic Simon Burrows said the helicopter’s instrumentation allowed for flying in foggy conditions – it had already travelled over Taumarunui in the first instance – but that was all it could do.
“We can obviously fly in fog because it’s an IFR helicopter, an instrument flight rules helicopter,” he said.
“However, we can’t land in fog because you have to be able to see land. We’re still restricted.”
The crew on Wednesday’s transfer included two pilots: Jamaican Loren Haisley and Afrikaaner David Badenhorst, alongside Kiwi Simon Burrows.
The Eight Mile was a relatively common spot for a helicopter to land for such a transfer, they said.
