LifeFlight has recruited 28 critical care doctors and equipped them with specialist training to operate in a rescue helicopter environment.

The doctors have come from far and wide to join LifeFlight’s world-renowned medical retrieval service, and all of them have a passion for providing the highest standard of critical care. More than 180 medical professionals, including doctors, are employed by LifeFlight, making it Australia’s largest employer of aeromedical doctors.

The specialized Helicopter Underwater Escape Training, sea survival, rescue winching and clinical scenario training, will enable the new doctors to tackle whatever challenges they may face in the field.

LifeFlight HUET manager Mick Dowling, said the doctors are trained in scenarios to teach them the primary escape points of an aircraft rapidly filling with water, including simulated darkness. “It’s important the doctors complete this training to develop escape skills that can then be transferred into an operating aircraft they are working on,” he said. “It is highly unlikely the aircraft will be in a ditching incident, but aviation best practice requires aviators who are flying over water to complete the HUET training.”

The doctors had their clinical skills pushed to the limit at the Queensland Combined Emergency Services Academy, with realistic simulated scenarios in a ship, ambulance, multi-vehicle collision and house party setting. The new recruits were also taught how to extract a patient from a road accident by Queensland Fire Department (QFD) personnel.