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KEEPING a helicopter steady in atrocious weather conditions while a paramedic winches down into a black hole to help a stricken patient is not something even most experienced chopper pilots can handle.
Luckily for West Australians living in remote and regional areas, RAC Rescue chopper pilot Michael Perren wouldn't want to be doing anything else.
The helicopter captain regularly flies the twin engine machines solo through strong winds, thick cloud and treacherous landscapes to reach accident scenes.
He said rescues around Bluff Knoll, the Stirling Ranges and off the coast of WA offer up some of the more hairy opportunities for him to put his years of experience into action.
“You can’t see the ground, the cloud is down at 700 feet, you’re a single pilot – you need to have a lot of experience to fly single pilot [without visibility] in a helicopter,” he said.
He said steadying the helicopter while one of the paramedics is winched down to an accident scene was often made more difficult by unpredictable winds around cliffs, gullies and mountains.
“What are you going to do if at any stage during winching you have an emergency – where are you going to go?”
Perren is one of four highly experienced helicopter pilots who team with WA’s best paramedics and air crewmen on rotating schedules every day of the year to provide urgent medical treatment across the state.
Despite his love for the work, Perren said there are downsides in being intimately involved with individuals and families on what might be the worst day of their lives.
“The one that comes to mind is the little boy that lost his life on Rottnest Island when the pillar fell down,” he said.
“I picked him up and I don’t like talking about it, mainly because at the time he was the same age as my kids. It wasn’t a nice job.”
Perren, a father of four, including triplets, said the difficult times at work help him to appreciate how lucky he and his family are.
“We see some really bad things sometimes but what I take from that is that I can come home and look at my family’s issues and it puts them in context to what I know somebody else might be going through,” he said.
“Somebody who has just had a death in the family because of a motor vehicle accident – it helps you see the bigger picture.”
Perren said as a father it was always hard to go out to an incident where there were children involved, especially if there was a severe injury or death.
“You can only imagine what a parent is going through,” he said.
Despite all the unfortunate times when the team can’t save patients, Perren said the work is as rewarding as it is diverse and the team genuinely has more wins than losses.
“I bounce out of bed every morning and know that I am going to a job that I love,” he said.
“Nothing against banks but when I first started working I had a job in a bank – never again. I’m blessed.”
Perren also praised the level of expertise and commitment shown by the Royal Perth trauma team, who provide the next level of care for patients after the helicopter drops them off.
“A lot of the patients we take in to Royal Perth will have fewer disabilities and be in hospital for a shorter period of time because of their work,” he said.
“And then we can also say that the person would have died if it wasn't for the rescue chopper and that’s fantastic.”
