Incoming patient arrival on the Alfred Hospital’s helipad
https://alfredappeal.org.au/
Photographer on-call
You never know when that helicopter is coming in! Sometimes they have 8 a day and other days nothing. That’s why I was requested to be on call for 4 days, hoping I’d get the call at least 20 minutes before the chopper’s arrival. Alas, within an hour on the first day I get the first call, in half an hour the patient will be arriving by air ambulance.
I have to confess that I do like the excitement of racing the chopper into the hospital. The lovely parking security had a car park marked off for me and I was signing in to the emergency department within 9 minutes, a record so far! The team at the Alfred put everyone to shame with their protocols and procedures all adhered to and followed in record time and organisation. I breezed in with time to spare before the chopper landed. I’m always so impressed by their co-operation and no-bull approach.
I photographed the Alfred staff pulling the patient out of the air ambulance and within 5 minutes they were safely admitted into the trauma unit. I was on my way back to download the images only to get another call that another chopper was on its way! We had to stop shooting at 3 arrivals so I could get the photos uploaded to the designer by the end of the day.
Working alongside the Senior Manager, Fundraising & Corporate Partnerships I learned that The Alfred Foundation is responsible for a large amount of funding that goes to the hospital and that these photos were being used on a billboard out the front to raise money for critical care.
