Aeromedical Transportation

Air evacuation of critically ill patients by both fixed and rotary-wing aircraft to regional medical centers is a commonplace event in current patient care.1,2We have reviewed our experience in the air transportation of severely burned patients in order to delineate and emphasize special problems associated with aeromedical transportation during the acute phase of illness. Personnel of the US Army Institute of Surgical Research have been involved in air evacuation of acutely injured patients since 1951. During the past three years, 249 flights have been undertaken, involving 765 patients. Thirty-one percent of the patients were evacuated to the Army Burn Center within 48 hours of injury. The others were transported from as far away as Japan during the first postburn weeks. Although helicopters are commonly used for evacuations within a 200-mile radius of our institute, the majority of patients were transported by fixed-wing planes. Air evacuation can be divided