Yesterday we were tasked to do something a bit different. Most of our work is transferring patients from smaller city hospitals to urgent specialist care, or picking people who have been in an accident. But yesterday we traveled offshore 140nm north to pickup someone from a cruise ship who needed urgent care.
Weather was good and the late summer sun helped a lot, but I only managed to snap a few shots while the work load wasn't high.
I used to dream of this kind of work, but always worried that it would be outside of my comfort zone. Compared to airplane pilots, most helicopter pilots are at home low, and in sight of the ground. Being so far out that you can not see land is only strange the first couple of times. Being wrapped in such an amazing piece of machinery and working with great people does bring comfort. But we can not forget that we are combining two of the most unforgiving places on earth, the sky and the sea.
This type of pickup requires the use of our winch to drop our paramedic onto the ship, assess the patient and prepare them to be winched up to the aircraft. It was a 1 hour flight directly north to the cruise ship. We made contact and briefed everyone involved. Our briefings try to include every possible scenario, so at no point is anyone confused about what to do should an issue arise.
From start to finish the extraction took about 7 minutes. All went smoothly. A straight trip back home in the opposite direction and we're home before dinner.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any shots of the ship.
Tracking out to the ship, if we kept going we'd eventually hit Russia. Somehow I don't think we'd make it.
Nice cup of tea on the way back home. At this point I couldn't help but wonder what the price of btc was doing ;)
It's always good to see land again.
