On April 11, German Air Rescue (DRF) operated its first cross-border mission with its BK117 helicopter. The crew of ‘Christoph Europa 5’ responded to the call for medical assistance from a patient in Tinglev, Denmark.

The helicopter is stationed at DRF’s new HEMS base at Niebüll Hospital in Schleswig-Holstein, and operates daily from 0700 to sunset, carrying full medical equipment on board.

The BK 117 is used for emergency rescue and the inter-hospital transfer of intensive care patients and, according to DRF, it can be operational within two minutes of an alert and can reach emergency scenes in a 50 kilometre radius within 15 minutes.

“With Christoph Europa 5, emergency medical care for the population in the German part of the mission area – the northwest of Schleswig-Holstein, the North Frisian islands and holms – will be improved,” said general manager Steffen Lutz at the opening ceremony of the HEMS base on April 1.

“We are very much interested in cross-border air rescue since there has been no area-wide air rescue system in Denmark that could be compared with the German system,” commented Carl Holst, County Mayor of the Danish administrative district of South Jutland.

The cross-border cooperation between Germany and Denmark is a joint initiative of non-profit organisation DRF, the Danish rescue service operator Falck, the German administrative district of North Friesland, and the Danish admin-istrative district of South Jutland.