Helicopter rescue: shorter resuscitation shifts needed at high altitudes

About fifty doctors, technicians, pilots and paramedical staff from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria participated in tests at 200, 3000 and 5000 meters: they performed chest compressions on a dummy that recorded the position of their hands and the frequency of their compressions as well as their depth. Meanwhile, on the other side of the glass - in the so-called control room - the research team monitored the participant’s respiratory and heart rates as well as their saturation levels. The altitudes at which the hypoxic conditions were reproduced - which correspond to the upper limit of rescue operations in the Alps - were not reached by helicopter in this case, but were replicated in terraXcube, Eurac Research’s extreme climate simulation center.

The participants performed their resuscitation tasks without knowing what altitude they were at, so the medical team could analyze pure physiological data, unaffected by environmental factors.
Although no one noticed a drop in their performance, the results show something different.
“Initially, the frequency and depth of compressions were normal. Then, at 3,000 meters and even more so at 5,000, after a minute to a minute and a half, the depth of the compressions began decreasing below the expected threshold of five to six centimeters. Reaction times were also a little slower," explains Giacomo Strapazzon, deputy director of the Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine at Eurac Research and head of the study, along with Anna Vögele and Michiel van Veelen.