1. School Council trip to HEMS

2. On Thursday 20 th March, the School Council went to visit the air ambulance in Essex. Mrs Jones drove us on the minibus and we had to drive onto an airfield. Mrs Dunn and Mrs Jones had never driven on a runway before so it was very exciting!

3. We met Christina and Dawn who gave us our high-vis jackets to wear for the day.

4. We met Lou the paramedic and Ben, the doctor.

5. Here we are with the Nick, the pilot.

6. Jamie When we went to HEMS we saw the features of the helicopter and there is one stretcher, two packs of medical equipment, two engines and 4 propellers. The petrol costs £220 for one day. Sam It costs £440,000 to run the helicopter for a month, so HEMS do lots of fundraising so they can raise this amount of money!

7. Freya Inside the helicopter there are more than one hundred buttons that the pilot, Nick, uses to fly the helicopter. Underneath the pilot and the co-pilot’s seats there are windows so they can see when is a safe place to land. I counted more than 84 buttons!

8. Jaina: The space inside the helicopter is fairly small. There’s: a stretcher (where they put the patient), a doctor’s seat, a breathing tube (which gives oxygen to the patient) and the pilot’s area at the front.

9. HEMS see around 400 patients a year. Most patients are extremely poorly, and need to be taken quickly to a hospital. HEMS go to the most life- threatening of cases so the work they do is really important.

10. The helicopter flies at about 120 mph. If the wind is behind it, it can fly at up to 150mph!

11. The helicopter has landed in some unusual places. It once landed in the elephant enclosure at London Zoo! The zoo keepers led the elephants back to the safety of their beds inside, so it was safe! They have also landed on a football pitch in Luton, the M25, lots of people’s gardens and in Cassiobury Park. They have to be careful when they land in people’s gardens because their washing sometimes blows away!

12. It was very windy on the airfield!

13. The box of maps show lots of different areas. HEMS furthest travelling point is Tring and it takes 22 minutes to get there. Some journeys only take 2 or 3 minutes!

14. Walki-talkies are kept in the crew’s suits, which have lots of different pocket compartments for different things. The doctor, paramedic and pilot always have to have food with them as they can get non-stop calls and don’t get to stop for lunch or dinner! In their pockets the crew keep their maps, medical information (so they know they are giving the correct dosage), special scissors and emergency chocolate!

15. The pilot has a Sat-Nav and the paramedic, Lou, has a whiteboard on her suit (like the mini whiteboards we use at school) to write down the exact location of where they need to go. The helicopter is similar to a hospital because it has lots of different medicines and equipment stored at the back.

16. There are windows next to the pilot’s feet so he can see the ground while he is landing and knows it is safe to land.

17. Our school council trip was awesome. I loved it. I got to sit in the front seat of the HEMS helicopter. It was incredible how many buttons there are. It was like button/switch mania! But it felt pretty cool sitting in the front seat because out of all the school councillors only I got to sit in the front.

18. On the outside of the helicopter, there is a special mechanism to stop the fuel catching fire, so that the petrol won’t blow up!

19. Daisy: In the ambulance car there were the same medical bags that they had in the helicopter. They use the car where there’s a rescue that’s fairly close by.

20. They don’t carry patients in the ambulance car though! It wouldn’t be very comfortable in the boot.

21. Ethan On the way out we were on the runway and all the teachers and school councillors were very excited. Luckily there weren’t any planes taking off so we didn’t crash! For me, it felt like I was in a plane (but it would be a flying coach) but there were not any planes in the sky.

22. We did see a few small aircraft take off while we had our lunch.

24. We had a fantastic day at HEMS!