Kurt Radler-Wöss drove the first emergency ambulance in Austria. The concept of the ’emergency responder’ was groundbreaking at the time, exactly 50 years ago. A lot has changed since the beginning, but the 72-year-old is still active with the Red Cross.
Workers fell into an elevator shaft near the Südbahnhof market in Linz! Immediately after this alarm, Kurt Radler-Wöss turned the ignition key and drove away in Austria’s first emergency ambulance, a Mercedes Benz. That was on February 1, 1974, exactly 50 years ago.
Today Radler-Wöss, one of the seven first paramedics in Upper Austria, is 72 years old. “We are a mobile intensive care unit,” says the Mühlviertler, who fondly remembers successful missions: “Especially when there were positive resuscitations, we said: ‘Yes, we did that again!’” Of course the 72- year-old also experienced some tragic missions – Travels, such as heart attacks on December 24 or emergencies involving small children.
From zero to 24,500 missions
The idea of bringing the doctor to the patient and not the other way around was completely new then, 50 years ago. This emergency medical system was gradually expanded in Upper Austria and now includes twenty bases, two of which are helicopter launch sites. Every year, the Red Cross carries out 24,500 emergency medical missions in this country; on average it takes eleven minutes for the team to reach the patient.
The state takes over most of the financing: “We have invested 65 million euros in the emergency doctor system over the past ten years,” says LH Vice Christine Haberlander (ÖVP).
To the patient without a navigation system
A lot has changed since the beginning. For example, emergency responders did not have a navigation device 50 years ago. Radler-Wöss and his colleagues made their own road maps or simply learned routes and paths. Other things remained unchanged, with a few exceptions: “The instruments are still the same, but much more modern,” says the 72-year-old from Mühlviertel.
Source: Krone
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