ADAC rescue’s air rescue station Ulm celebrates 50th anniversary

“Excellent work is being done in Ulm. Successful medical innovations in air rescue were initiated here, from which emergency patients now benefit every day,” said Frédéric Bruder, Managing Director of ADAC Luftrettung.

Ulm’s rescue helicopter, Christoph 22, is mainly used for injuries after accidents, in emergencies such as heart attacks and cardiac arrhythmias as well as neurological emergencies such as strokes, and the ADAC rescue helicopter is ready to be deployed in around two minutes.

The mission to save lives

There have also been numerous medical innovations and breakthroughs over the past five decades which the Ulm Bundeswehr doctors tested and established with the help of the rescue helicopter. Currently, a pilot project is running with blood and blood coagulation products on board in order to be able to help seriously injured people on site immediately. So that patients can get to the emergency room even faster and without an additional critical repositioning, a roof landing pad is currently being built at the Bundeswehr hospital in Ulm for Christoph 22.

For Christoph 22, a total of 28 team members are on a rotating basis at the station in Ulm: three pilots from ADAC air rescue as well as 18 emergency doctors and seven emergency paramedics from the clinic for anesthesiology, intensive care medicine, emergency medicine and pain therapy at the Bundeswehr hospital in Ulm. In 2020, Christoph 22 took off on almost 1,500 missions.

Meanwhile, the ADAC Luftrettung air rescue station Saarbrücken, Germany, and its rescue helicopter Christoph 16, celebrated its 25th anniversary on 1 July.