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Ukraine War Lessons: Medevac Needs to Change — Now
Drone swarms are impacting the so-called “Golden Hour” in Ukraine — the critical period after an injury when qualified medical care is essential to saving life and limb.
Drop this in the bucket of “Ongoing lessons learned in Ukraine that will change NATO strategy forever.”
When the television show “M*A*S*H” first aired in the 1970s, it was likely the first exposure for much of the American public to the use of military helicopter medevacs (medical evacuations) in combat. Set during the Korean War, the dramady highlighted the lifesaving capabilities of this fancy new rotor-wing war machine.
The Korean War was the first time the U.S. experienced a dramatic reduction in the wounded-to-killed ratio — this ratio was 4:1 in the 20th Century’s world wars, to about 10:1 today.
As the 20th Century progressed, a wounded soldier’s survival rate became directly proportional to how soon after an injury that soldier received medical care.
Coined by R. Adams Cowley of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, the lessons learned in medevac missions in the Vietnam War would provide hard evidence that death can be prevented if qualified care is administered within 60 minutes of injury — the “golden hour.”
