• Bjørn O Reid, Helge Haugland, Marius Rehn, Oddvar Uleberg, and Andreas J Krüger.
• Department of Emergency Medicine and Prehospital Services, St. Olav's University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; Medical Services, Norwegian Armed Forces, Sessvollmoen, Norway. Electronic address: bjorn.ole.reid@stolav.no.
• Wilderness Environ Med. 2019 Jun 1; 30 (2): 155-162.

IntroductionHelicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) contribute to and complement other specialized search and rescue (SAR) services. Conversely, traditional SAR services perform medical evacuation (medevac), depending on crew, training, medical equipment, and procedures for interdisciplinary cooperation. We aim to describe and compare SAR and remote medevac mission characteristics in a military SAR helicopter system to a civilian HEMS operating in the same region.MethodsRetrospective, observational study of SAR and remote medevac missions performed at a Norwegian military SAR helicopter and civilian HEMS base in the 5-y period from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2017. Descriptive statistics and median values with interquartile range (IQR) were applied where appropriate. Comparisons were performed with the Mann-Whitney U test.ResultsWe included 721 missions. The SAR service performed 359 (50%) missions, of which 237 (33%) were SAR and 122 (17%) were remote medevac missions. The HEMS service performed 85 (12%) SAR and 277 (38%) remote medevac missions. Median mission time for SAR missions was 152 (IQR 100-235) min for the SAR service and 57 (IQR 34-89) min for the HEMS service. Trauma was the dominating mechanism in 48% of patients, followed by medical conditions (21%) and psychiatric disorders (9%). Medevac patients in both services had a higher median National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics score of 3 (IQR 2-4) compared to 1 (IQR 0-3) in SAR missions (P<0.05).ConclusionsBoth SAR and HEMS services perform SAR and remote medevac missions extensively and mission profiles vary.Copyright © 2019 Wilderness Medical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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