A drone carrying a defibrillator won the ambulance speed race by arriving at the scene of a sudden cardiac arrest with a lead of 3 minutes and 11 seconds. The interval between the shock delivered early by the defibrillator, used by occasional rescuers, to the patient, and the subsequent arrival of the ambulance, was 2 minutes and 12 seconds. This means increasing the probability of saving the patient suffering from cardiac arrest by 20%.
It is the result of a simulation organized in Altomonte (Cosenza) and which represents the second test, after the one carried out in Taranto on 26 February, as part of the experimental Sanitary Emergency Urban Air Mobility (Seuam) project of the Italian company Sistema 118. «Sudden cardiac arrest – reports Mario Balzanelli, president of Sis118 – kills, inexorably, every hour, at least 8 Italians, and almost 60,000 people per year. At least 40% of these people, affected in any age group, can be saved without disabling neurological outcomes” if they immediately receive cardiac massage and, when indicated, within the first 3-4 minutes, the electric shock delivered by a defibrillator.
Today's test involved sending an ambulance from Iersi (SP 121) and a drone to the place where rescue was needed at the same time. With the same starting point, the ambulance had to travel a road stretch of approximately 2.5 km, while for the drone with the defibrillator the distance covered was, in a straight line, approximately 500 metres.” «We believe in the project – said Giampietro Coppola, mayor of Altomonte, partner of the experimentation – and we are convinced that its development and entry into operation will allow us to save more and more human lives.” «I am happy, as an entrepreneur, to accompany the realization of this revolutionary experimental project – states Carlo Villano Aquilino, administrator of the Campania aerospace consortium Caltec – with the prospect of promoting, at the same time as innovation and technology at the service of human life, the development and the quality employment of young talents in our area. I thank the CEO Enrico Iuliano of Gec Software for the logistical support.”
