Within a few hours, two Air Force aircraft took off this afternoon to carry out two urgent medical transports for a 15-year-old boy and a 60-year-old man in imminent danger of his life.
The boy, hospitalized at the Vito Fazzi hospital in Lecce and in need of immediate specialist care, was boarded at the military base of Lecce Galatina, home of the Air Force flight school, and urgently transported to Florence with a Falcon 50 of the 31st Wing, for subsequent hospitalization at the Meyer hospital.
The 60-year-old man, hospitalized at the Monaldi hospital in Napleswas instead transported urgently – directly aboard an ambulance loaded aboard a C-130J of the 46th Air Brigade – at the Venice airport, for subsequent hospitalization at the University Hospital of Padua.
Emergency flights, requested respectively by Prefectures of Lecce and Napleswere coordinated and arranged by Top Situation Room of the Rome Air Squadron Command and from Poggio Renatico Aerospace Operations Command (FE), the operations rooms of the Air Force which have among their tasks also that of activating and managing urgent medical transports, giving the take-off order to the aircraft that the Armed Force keeps in a state of readiness, 24 hours a day , in various bases, for this kind of need.
At the end of the missions, the aircraft returned to the permanent bases of Ciampino and Pisa to resume their readiness service.
Air Force crews and transport aircraft are operational every single day of the year, 24 hours a day, to ensure, where requested and deemed necessary for urgent reasons, the medical transport of people in imminent danger of life, organs or medical teams or, as in this case, people in need of transfer to specialized treatment centers throughout the country. Hundreds of flight hours are carried out every year for this type of intervention, in support of citizens, by the aircraft of the 31st Wing of Ciampino, the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare and the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa. Where there are specific operational needs, the Air Force also employs the helicopters of the 15th Wing of Cervia.
