Winter emergencies: Flight rescue in Austria records record record!

Winter emergencies: Flight rescue in Austria records record record!

Patergassen, Österreich - The ÖAMTC's flight rescue service was strongly challenged over the semester break, as current statistics show. The managing director of the ÖAMTC flight rescue, Marco Trefanitz, explained that the low-snow winter did not stop numerous winter athletes from going to the slopes. Between the 1st and 23rd February, the helicopters rose a total of 1,336 times, which increases in the further context of four winter locations to 1,666 missions. This number means an average of more than 72 invasion per day. The situation in Tyrol was particularly intensive, where the two most operational days, February 4 and 20, each had 90 missions. The most common emergencies were internal and neurological as well as numerous winter sports accidents that made up a large part of the operations. A total of 437 skiers and 53 snowboarders were transported to hospitals before further medical care, such as . .

In 2024, the ÖAMTC set a new record with 22,203 missions, which means an average of 61 alarms per day. This represents an increase compared to 2023 when 20,823 missions were recorded. Trefanitz underlined the importance of flight rescue as an indispensable part of emergency management in Austria, especially during the flood disaster in autumn 2024. The range of applications of the Christophorus crews was also diverse in 2024, from internal emergencies to leisure accidents to alpine emergencies. About 46.5 percent of the missions did not exist on acute medical emergencies such as heart attacks, while 10.9 percent of sports and leisure accidents in the alpine area were. The winter helicopter positions in Patergassen, Sölden, Hintertux and Zell am See granted quick help in highly frequented areas, such as Oeasttc.at emphasized .