SHETLAND COASTGUARD ASSIST AMBULANCE SERVICE IN ATROCIOUS WEATHER CONDITIONS


Shetland Coastguard has today twice responded to requests for help from the Scottish Ambulance Service in appalling weather conditions in Orkney.

At approximately 1400 this afternoon, the Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre (ARCC) at RAF Kinloss, contacted Shetland Coastguard on behalf of the Ambulance Air Desk at Cardonald, regarding a 70-year-old woman on the island of Sanday, Orkney who had breathing difficulties and required airlift to hospital in Kirkwall.

The Coastguard Rescue Helicopter based at Sumburgh, Shetland, Rescue 102 was tasked and despite appalling weather conditions, with northerly gales and heavy snow showers, the helicopter successfully extracted the patient from Sanday and took her to Kirkwall airport, where they were met by a waiting ambulance for onward conveyance to the Balfour Hospital.

Then at 5.25pm this afternoon, Ambulance Control in Inverness requested assistance to take another elderly patient, a 75-year-old man with severe abdominal pains, also to the Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall. An ambulance had been dispatched to his address in South Ronaldsay but had had to turn back due to the road conditions.

Shetland Coastguard then sent a Coastguard 4 wheel drive vehicle from their team at St.Margarets Hope to the incident. The patient has been successfully uplifted and was taken to hospital.

Shetland Coastguard Watch Manager Dave Phillips said: "We are happy to have assisted the medical authorities on Orkney get these two elderly patients to hospital in what have been fairly severe weather conditions."

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