Stabbing and shooting callouts rise for London's Air Ambulance
- Published
London's Air Ambulance has attended the majority of major incidents in London, which in 2017 has included the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks
London's Air Ambulance attended more stabbings and shootings than traffic accidents in 2017, it has been revealed.
Medics treated 560 patients who had been critically injured by knives or guns - nearly a third of the total callouts last year.
It is the first time in the charity's history the category exceeded the number of collisions, totalling 533.
It comes in a year which saw 80 fatal stabbings in London.
Dr Gareth Grier, lead clinician at London's Air Ambulance, said: "It is not unusual now for our teams to perform open chest surgery for stab wounds twice in a single day.
"This would have been unheard of a few years back. But our world-leading treatments mean that we can give these and other patients we treat the best possible chance of survival."
Victims of stabbings and shootings accounted for 31% of the charity's work in 2017. There were an extra 60 such cases compared with the 500 in 2016 while road collisions fell from 606 to 533.
The busiest boroughs for the charity were Hackney, Newham and Westminster, while more than 400 of its cases involved falls from height.
Since its inception in 1989, London's Air Ambulance has treated more than 37,000 patients and attended the majority of major incidents in London, which in 2017 has included the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire.
The 24/7 service for London costs 拢10m per year, which is mostly funded through charitable donations.