Dr Matan Ben David emphasises importance of helmets as seven hour airlift challenges puts lives at risk
People living an hour from Townsville hospital can experience a seven hour wait for an airlift when their lives are in danger. This is why one doctor is emphasising the importance of a helmet in case help doesn't make it in time.
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A Townsville doctor is warning people are risking their lives by not wearing a helmet on motorised vehicles, as extreme airlift delays of up to seven hours or more are putting patients lives on the lines.
Townsville University Hospital (TUH) Staff Specialist and Surgical Senior Medical General Dr Matan Ben David has seen the worst possible outcomes for people suffering from head injuries after they chose not to wear a helmet when riding electric scooters, quad bikes or motorcycles.
“If a major accident occurs one hour away from Townsville, where the patient needs to be flown whether by helicopter or by the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) … it can take up to seven hours to get to the hospital,” he said.
“Most of the time if you need to be flown it would take you longer than it would by road because the logistics are so complex.”
In some cases these extreme delays have caused fatalities in young patients which Dr David said he finds the most “gut wrenching”.
“There is a case where a medical team went out to retrieve a pediatric patient and the team was in the air and was meant to meet the patient on the tarmac and airlift him back,” he said.
“He was deteriorating so the medical team had to disembark the aeroplane and drive to the medical facility he was in and because of that time delay the pilot exceeded his working hour allowance and he had to fly back and then a new team had to come back and retrieve the medical team.”
Another case was a motor-scooter crash on Magnetic Island that took the life of Belgian tourist, Romy Styleman in June last year.
Dr David said that it took four hours to airlift her from the Island to TUH where she died later that night.
“I think the highlight here is that our geography is so challenging, especially with retrievals, everyone is so dispersed and retrieval capabilities are not great, ” he said.
A study by Graeme Maw and Vinay Gangathimmaiah in the department of Emergency medicine at TUH found that of 443 patients who presented in a two-year period with head injuries from e-scooters, 58 per cent of them were not wearing helmets.
Of those patients, nine per cent were under the age of 16 years old.
“(Parents) do everything you can to prevent injuries. I’m not saying don’t let them go and do their activities, but do everything you can to minimise the risk of significant injuries by prevention because relaying on them reaching the hospital – should that be the need – in time, is not always feasible,” Dr David said.
The TUH Trauma Registry shows that roughly a quarter to a third of patients will have a moderate severity head injury due to motorbikes, bikes, horse riding, e-scooters or skateboarding.
“People need to be aware that (airlifting) limitations and constraints exist and retrievals are complex and will often be later than we tend to think it will be,” Dr David said.
“Helmets prevent 60 per cent of significant head injuries – not all of them – but they significantly reduce the risk of having a major head injury.
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Originally published as Dr Matan Ben David emphasises importance of helmets as seven hour airlift challenges puts lives at risk
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