Marathon AME

Earlier this week I did another aero medical evacuation (AME). As the title of this blog suggests it was a bit of a marathon. In the end we travelled the longest distance possible without actually leaving the country.
A large part of the RAMSI mission to establish law and order throughout the Solomon Islands. There are something like 400 inhabited islands spread over an area roughly the size of Victoria . This means that with limited resources RAMSI, in cooperation with the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP) have outposts far and wide throughout the nation. Many of these comprise just one Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer accompanied by half a dozen RSIP officers. Each of the provinces has their own ethnic, cultural and historical issues to contend with. The Shortland Islands, in the Western Province has had perhaps more than its fair share of issues to deal with. The Shortlands are within view of Bougnaville Island which is part of PNG and the scene of a violent secessionist movement. Partly as a result of gun running between the Western province of the Solomons and Bougnaville there is a small police outpost in the Shortlands. These police live in a tiny fenced compound on the coast of one of the Shortland islands and police the surrounding islands.

The shortlands outpost

Unfortunately simple domestic accidents occur randomly regardless of how close medical assistance is or how valuable the work being done is. So it was that a RSIP officer named John happened to tip a large tub of boiling water off the stove onto his wrist resulting in a partial thickness burn right around his wrist and half way to his elbow.
Aspen were called a few days later when (inevitably) the burn was not responding to simple bandaging and ointment. The tropical weather means that infection is incredibly easy to get, even from a scratched mosquito bite. John’s wrist was becoming seriously infected, moving his hand was now almost impossible, and the circumferential nature of the burn meant he was in danger of losing his hand so and AME was called.
We took off in a Bell 412 from Honiara just after midday. On board was myself, the AME doctor, a crewman and two pilots. Short flights require just one pilot but this was an unusually long helicopter flight over many islands, some of them over 5000 ft high and long stretches of ocean, all in sometimes very poor weather. The wet (or wetter) season is almost upon us so isolated storms wander around the country almost constantly now.

Honiara looking West

Honiara looking South. We live just right of the taller building at the base of the spit of land (Pt.Cruz)

The initial flight took us along the northern coast of Guadalcanal, past the capital. We then flew 25 minutes over the sea to the Russel islands and again another hour over sea to the New Georgia islands. These are home to the Marovo lagoon, the largest lagoon in the world. It stretches around the norther perimeter of the larger islands and encloses dozens of smaller islands. It is a World Heritage Listed site and needless to say absolutely stunning from the air. Unfortunately the photos I took don’t do it, or any of the views much justice. The weather, as I mentioned, was poor, the windows were covered in rain much of the time and the ride in the back of a helicopter could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as smooth.

Approaching the Marovo lagoon. Following shots are also Marovo lagoon.

We landed at Munda airport in the New Georgia group and refuelled. This was self service at its most primitive. My job immediately upon landing was to guard the front of the aircraft as the rotors slowed. There are no fences at the airport and children will commonly just run at the aircraft oblivious to the dangers. Once this had been done it was a matter of unlocking the shed on the side of the runway, rolling out three 44 gallon drums of avgas and getting the pump out of the helicopter. Thankfully it ran on electricity from the helicopter’s batteries because it took about two and a half of the drums to refuel. After that is was straight up and off in order to be back in Honiara before dark. The pilot had ominously told me he had never flown anywhere darker than the Solomons at night.

Turning to land at Munda

Munda airport terminal with a Solomons Airlines Twin Otter in foreground. Munda airport was originally a Japanese fighter airstri during WW2.

DIY Refueling. Munda.

Practicing Pidjin with locals while refueling at Munda.

We finally landed at the Shortland outpost around three and quickly collected our patient who was able to sit for the long ride home. It was obviously John’s first ride in a helicopter. I have never seen a man’s eyes open as wide as his did when we took off.
The return flight involved another stop at Munda to refuel before dodging storms at 1000 feet for the final leg back to Honiara. Several times there was simply no way around smaller fronts and we simply flew straight through. Everything would go completely white and the pilots would fly completely by instruments for several minutes at a time while rain hammered against the windscreen.
We finally arrived safely back at Honiara just on sundown having successfully completed another AME covering 1000 kilometres in a little over 5 hours of flying time.