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Discovery

The Business of Failure

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.31.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr Kevin Fong flies with a US air ambulance crew and discovers why it’s seen as one of the most dangerous occupations in America.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

0:03.0

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,

0:07.0

go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. broadcasts. truth about success and failure in medicine, a series examining how and why organizations

0:25.4

succeed and fail, searching for lessons that might one day be of use to all of us.

0:32.2

Sometimes to save lives you need to risk lives. Getting that balance right is incredibly

0:37.6

difficult especially in medicine. In the first program of our series we are

0:42.3

looking at an industry in the United States that got that balance wrong.

0:47.0

In the hospital site request, Rhetowness Center to UW. In 2008, a new occupation was

0:55.0

a new occupation rose to the top of the list of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.

1:01.0

It was more dangerous than Atlantic trawler fishing, more dangerous than logging, or even steel working. It was being a crew member aboard a helicopter emergency medical service vehicle.

1:11.0

Now I'm standing on the helipad of the University of Wisconsin Hospital's Medflight Service.

1:18.2

I'm about to climb onto one of their helicopters to find out what it's like to do what is statistically one of the most dangerous jobs

1:25.1

in the United States. Yep. approximately 55 kilos. Every year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of patients,

1:46.0

many in need of urgent care, are attended by helicopter emergency medical service teams.

1:51.0

These flights provide vital access to specialist

1:54.4

medical expertise and save lives threatened by critical illness or injury.

1:59.2

But to reap the huge benefits that these services bring, the operating organizations and crews have

2:05.0

to manage significant risk.

2:07.4

Yet when compared with other countries, the US has an unenviably poor safety record.

2:13.4

So why is the US different?

2:15.7

What is it about the system of helicopter operation there

2:19.0

that leaves them vulnerable to a much higher rate of accident

...

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