The emergency medical transport of a 13-year-old teenager on the Reggio Calabria-Rome route, carried out with an Air Force G-650 aircraft, ended yesterday evening. The patient, in imminent danger of her life, needed to be urgently transferred from the Grand Metropolitan Hospital of Reggio Calabria to the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome and traveled inside the aircraft, constantly monitored and assisted by a medical team, and in the company of her mother. Activities of this kind, in favor of citizens, constitute one of the institutional tasks carried out by the Air Force.
The life-saving flight was activated, at the request of the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria, by the Air Force Summit Situation Room, dependent on the Milan Air Force Command, which immediately involved the 31st Wing, one of the departments that carries out the operational readiness service for this type of missions. The flight, as happens with this type of activity, was authorized by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers which manages and coordinates the activities of the fleet of state aircraft. Having carried out all the procedures necessary for immediate take-off, the aircraft took off from Rome Ciampino airport yesterday evening, landing in Reggio Calabria. Here the patient was boarded on the G650 for emergency transport back to Rome Ciampino airport, where an ambulance was waiting for her to facilitate her subsequent admission to the Roman hospital. The Air Force’s flight departments are available to the community 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with vehicles and crews capable of operating, even in complex weather conditions, to ensure the urgent transport not only of people in imminent danger of their lives, but also of organs, medical teams or ambulances. Every year there are hundreds of flight hours carried out for this type of intervention by the planes of the 31st Wing of Ciampino, the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare, the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa and the helicopters of the 15th Wing of Cervia.