Pilot

The Trust has two Pilots who work on a roster basis to operate the rescue helicopter service.

Our Pilots experience levels range between 3,000 and 8,000 helicopter flying hours. The Pilots have a wide range of skills, which are required when flying rescue missions, these include:

• Remote area night operations and winches
• Off-shore operations

Daily duties include:

• Ensuring the helicopter is ready for immediate response
• Flying the helicopter and maintaining ATC (Air Traffic Control) communication
• Mission planning to ensure success and safety of operation, especially for night and off-shore operations
• Constant assessment of weather and flight conditions to determine the best option to achieve mission
• Overall responsibility for safety of operations during a mission
• Maintaining all flight documentation
• Updating mission database at the end of each mission
• Sending out press releases relating to the mission

The Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter Pilots practice their skills regularly to maintain the highest level of proficiency.

Crewmember

The Trust has five volunteer crewmembers. They have a wide range of responsibilities, including:

• Safety of the helicopter at accident scenes and general safety around the helicopter at all times
• Communicating obstacle information and clearances to Pilot during bush, cliff and sea rescues
• Operating the Rescue hoist during winching operation
• Assistance to paramedics and medical staff in care and transport of patients
• Operating mission equipment, for example the Night Sun, FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) and Direction Finder
• Role changes of helicopter e.g: loading Incubators and Stretcher bridges
• Loading of equipment and testing
• Passenger safety management

The volunteer crewmembers respond to missions from their home or place of work. The Trust is extremely grateful for the time and effort committed, to the Service, by the crewmembers.

Paramedic

For the paramedic role, St John provides an Advanced Paramedic to crew on the rescue helicopter

The principle role of the Paramedic is patient care, which includes:

• Locating injuries (triage)
• Assessment of priorities
• Diagnosis
• Treatment of injuries / medical condition
• Transportation of patient
• Scene management
• Liaison with other services
• Communication with medical centres

To see our current team of Paramedics please click here.