The crews of the ÖAMTC air rescue service completed 17.281 missions in 2020. This is a decrease of 2019 percent compared to 8,7. "The fact that we flew less is - how could it be otherwise - due to the corona pandemic. Of course, our emergency medical helicopters were still in constant use and took off on average 47 times a day," explains Reinhard Kraxner, Managing Director of the ÖAMTC air rescue service. "But it is also a fact: measures such as lockdowns, contact and exit restrictions, lack of summer and winter tourism or home office have led to an operational picture that has partly differed from previous years." It was clearly evident in the operational statistics, for example, that the measures were relaxed in the summer: In contrast to lockdown times, the ÖAMTC air rescue service recorded almost ten percent more missions between the beginning of July and mid-September than in the same period in 2019. "However, it must also be noted that at the end of May 2020 we put an additional base into operation with Christophorus 17 in Upper Styria," Kraxner clarifies. In 2020, the ÖAMTC emergency medical helicopters were also most frequently called out for internal and neurological emergencies (e.g. heart attacks or strokes) - around 45 percent of all missions can be attributed to this. Accidents that occurred during leisure time, at work, at school or at home accounted for 17 percent of the operations, while traffic accidents accounted for only 7 percent. 666 people had to be rescued from impassable terrain using rope rescue, sometimes under the most difficult conditions. The Christophorus emergency medical helicopters took off on 2020 missions at night in 582. Looking at the individual federal states, it can be seen that most missions were in Lower Austria (3.676).
