RACQ LifeFlight Rescue critical care doctors mark their first year of service

The critical care doctors at RACQ LifeFlight Rescue have completed their first year onboard the Bundaberg-based rescue helicopter.

Over the past 12 months, they have performed more than 189 missions since they joined the service on 21 August 2022.

Dr Peter Henderson was the doctor on shift that day, when the aeromedical crew responded to an elderly man who suffered a concussion, after falling from a horse while mustering. He was airlifted to Bundaberg Hospital in what became the first of many missions involving critical care doctors in the Wide Bay-Burnett region and beyond.

“I do remember that first job. There are a lot of missions that stay with you which are either memorable because of the people we help, because of the medical response required or because of the circumstances surrounding it,” said Henderson.

Up to the end of the financial year, RACQ LifeFlight Rescue figures show the critical care doctors participated in more than 82 missions requiring response directly to an emergency scene, with jobs including dingo attacks, serious motor vehicle incidents, injuries at island locations and rescues from remote areas.

The critical care doctors enhance the aeromedical care which has been provided in the region for 25 years by the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) Flight Paramedics on board the RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter.

“The QAS Flight Paramedics are just phenomenal. They’ve been working in these environments for decades. As doctors we have so much to learn from them,” said Henderson.

The critical care doctors and flight paramedics perform another vital service, with more than 100 inter-hospital transfer (IHT) taskings, when patients are airlifted from regional medical facilities across the Wide Bay-Burnett, to centers where they can receive higher levels of care.

Local LifeFlight Regional Advisory Chair Neil McPhillips commented: “The statistics from this first year of having the doctors as part of the aeromedical team, prove the need was absolutely there in the Wide Bay-Burnett. It was definitely time for the service to be enhanced and the number of critical missions shows it was justified.”