You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 169, Issue 5
  • Collective aeromedical evacuations of SARS-CoV-2-related ARDS patients in a military tactical plane: a retrospective descriptive study

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Personal view
Collective aeromedical evacuations of SARS-CoV-2-related ARDS patients in a military tactical plane: a retrospective descriptive study
  1. Thibault Martinez1,
  2. K Simon2,
  3. L Lely3,4,
  4. C Nguyen Dac5,
  5. M Lefevre6,
  6. P Aloird6,
  7. J Leschiera7,
  8. S Strehaiano8,
  9. O Nespoulous9,
  10. M Boutonnet1 and
  11. L Raynaud10
  1. 1 Federation of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care Unit, Burns and Operating Theater, Percy Military Training Hospital, Clamart, France
  2. 2 160th Military Medical Unit, Istres, France
  3. 3 190th Military Medical Unit, Lanester, France
  4. 4 French Military Health Service, Paris, France
  5. 5 132th Military Medical Unit, Evreux, France
  6. 6 100th Military Medical Unit, Bricy, France
  7. 7 50th Military Medical Unit, TOUL CEDEX, France
  8. 8 111th Military Medical Unit, Tours, France
  9. 9 Aeromedical Research Expertise Training Department, French Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute, Bretigny sur Orge, France, France
  10. 10 Federation of anesthesiology, intensive care unit, Military Training Hospital Begin, Saint Mande, Île-de-France, France
  1. Correspondence to Dr Thibault Martinez, Federation of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care Unit, Burns and Operating Theater, Percy Military Training Hospital, 92141 Clamart, France; thibault.martinez{at}hotmail.fr

Abstract

After the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic in France, MEROPE system was created to transform the military tactical ATLAS A400M aircraft into a flying intensive care unit. Collective aeromedical evacuations (aero-MEDEVAC) of patients suffering from SARS-CoV-2-related acute respiratory distress syndrome was performed from June to December 2020. A total of 22 patients were transported during seven missions. All aero-MEDEVAC was performed in safe conditions for patients and crew. No life-threatening conditions occurred during flight. Biohazard controls were applied according to French guidelines and prevented crew contamination. Thanks to rigorous selection criteria and continuous in-flight medical care, the safe transportation of these patients was possible. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first description of collective aero-MEDEVAC of these kinds of patients using a tactical military aircraft. We here describe the patient’s characteristics and the flight’s challenges.

  • COVID-19
  • aviation medicine
  • public health
  • adult intensive & critical care

This article is made freely available for personal use in accordance with BMJ’s website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.

https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usage

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmilitary-2021-001876

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors TM, MB and LR conceived the study and designed the trial. TM supervised the conduct of the trial and data collection. TM, KS, LL, CND, ML, PA, JL, SS, ON, MB and LR undertook recruitment of patients and managed the data. TM provided statistical advice on study design and analysed the data; TM drafted the manuscript, and KS, LL, CND, ML, PA, JL, SS, ON, MB and LR contributed substantially to its revision. TM takes responsibility for the paper as a whole.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Disclaimer The opinions expressed in here are the private views of the authors and are not to be considered as official or as reflecting the views of the French Military Health Service.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.