Christoph Thüringen , the only helicopter in Thuringia that is available around the clock for urgent transfers between clinics and emergency operations, is celebrating his birthday. On April 1st, 30 years ago , the station started its service, first at Erfurt Airport, four years later it was moved to the central clinic in Bad Berka. Today the crew performs over 1,000 operations a year, a third of them at night.

“Our constantly high number of missions show that Christoph Thüringen is an indispensable component in the comprehensive medical care of the people here in the region,” emphasizes station manager Michael Deininger. “ Urgent transports between clinics account for about three quarters of our assignments. Time is often of the essence in these highly demanding medical missions : for example, a heart patient needs to be flown very quickly and carefully to a heart center for a life-saving operation, or a newborn baby in an incubator needs to be flown to a specialized children’s clinic. But we are also available for emergencies , because in an emergency every minute often counts,” the experienced pilot continues.

Christoph Thüringen’s tasks also include the transport of transplant teams and patients who require intensive medical maximum therapy . For example, B. life-saving procedures such as ECMO, the mobile heart-lung machine. A state-of-the-art H145 helicopter has been available to the team for its missions since 2019. As a “flying intensive care unit”, the machine is optimally suited for carrying out medically complex operations due to its size, performance and equipment.