Almost one million people suffer from heart attack year and only about 8% of those people actually survive it. The main reason the death toll is so high is mostly because of delay in response of medical services and ambulance which takes long time to respond due to traffic or bad road etc. In Africa the ambulance can even take more than 5 hours to arrive it’s destination or may not even arrive at all. Most time, they have to get the patients to the hospital themselves. All these problems are what made a young Dutch student to design this ambulance drone which is a robot that is capable of getting – e.g. a defibrillator – to a patient within a 12 square kilometre (4.6 square miles) radius within just one minute, increasing the chance of survival from 8% to 80% and save lives of thousands.
epa04466924 A woman gives a demonstration of an ambulance drone with built in defibrillator at the campus of the Delft Technical University in Delft, The Netherlands, 28 October 2014. The small aircraft, designed by Alec Momont of the Delft Technical University, weighs some four kg and can fly at speed of 100 km and can quickly deliver a defibrillator to patients suffering a cardiac arrest. EPA/BAS CZERWINSKI
With this brilliant concept, everyone needing urgent medical attention (not only heart attack) will benefit from faster response times and will also increase chances of survival. As soon as the emergency line is called, the operator sends out the camera fitted flying robot (drone) which flies at lightening speed to the address of the victim.
Once it gets there, an operator like a paramedic, can watch, talk and instruct those helping the victim – or the victim themselves – by using an on-board phone and camera connected to a control room via a livestream webcam. The drone contains everything you need to take care of the emergency at the moment including an integrated defibrillator before you’re able to get to the doctor. It’s basically a flying hospital !
The name of the designer is Alec Momont, the name of his project is TU Delft (ambulance drone). According to him, his vision is to create a wide network of drones capable of saving lives and increasing survival chances from 8% to 80%. These drone which can travel with speed of up to 100KM/HR are not affected by traffic jam or bad road network. It can arrive it’s destination in just one minute. The drone has attracted the interest of emergency services in major cities like Amsterdam. Furthermore, high unemployment rates could be reduced by using skilled young gamers as drone operators.