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Medical evacuation, often shortened tomedevac[1] ormedivac,[1] is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to patients requiring evacuation or transport using medically equippedair ambulances,helicopters and other means of emergency transport including ground ambulance and maritime transfers.[2][3]
Examples include civilianEMS vehicles, civilian aeromedical helicopter services, and military air ambulances. This term also covers the transfer of patients from the battlefield to a treatment facility or from one treatment facility to another by medical personnel, such as from a local hospital to another medical facility which has adequate medical equipment.[2]
In Asia, according to Aeromedical Global (M) Sdn Bhd, medical evacuations via air ambulance can be performed via a single or dual stretched setup. According to patients medical condition, Emergency Air Ambulances will be equipped with relevant equipment (ventilators, Portable O2 Concentrator etc).
The first medical transport by air was recorded inSerbia in the autumn of 1915 during theFirst World War.[4] One of the ill soldiers in that first medical transport wasMilan Rastislav Štefánik, a Slovak pilot-volunteer who was flown to safety by French aviatorLouis Paulhan.[5]
TheUnited States Army used this lifesaving technique inBurma toward the end ofWorld War II withSikorsky R-4B helicopters. The first helicopter rescue was by 2nd LtCarter Harman, in Japanese-heldBurma, who had to make several hops to get his Sikorsky YR-4B to the1st Air Commando Group's secret airfield in enemy territory and then made four trips from there between April 25 and 26 to recover the American pilot and four injured British soldiers, one at a time.[6] The first medivac under fire happened in Manila in 1945 when five pilots evacuated 75–80 soldiers one or two at a time.[7]
