Offshore wind farms may soon be supported by jet-suit wearing paramedics.
Operating developer Orsted has partnered with Great North Air Ambulance Service and Gravity Industries to trial onshore the viability.
It is seen as an improvement on first aid response out at sea.
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The collaboration will train experienced paramedics to use the suit to access real patients in the Lake District.
First free flights have been completed, with the aim to have operational skills by the summer - allowing assessment of potential for bases like Grimsby and Barrow.
It could also be used to transfer between offshore structures, with suits potentially becoming as familiar as PPE on the service operation vessels.
Peter Teglman Schiøler, product owner for operations and maintenance logistics at Ørsted, said: "With safety at the forefront of everything we do, we want to explore ways of getting emergency help to our colleagues in times of need.
“With strong innovation opportunities in the UK we hope to connect the offshore wind industry into this environment. With the trial together with Gravity and GNAAS we aim to bring the jet suit technology closer to the offshore wind industry and enable the lake district to assess the usage of this technology for first aid support.”
Gravity Industries is the first organisation of its kind that designs, builds, and flies the world's first patented Jet Suit, pioneering a new era of human flight.
Richard Browning, founder and chief test pilot at Gravity Industries, said: ‘Our drive for creating the suit came from wanting to challenge what seemed like the impossible, and to now see it being used for areas of special forces mobility and first response search and rescue, it’s very exciting. We’re enjoying working in a new sector and helping the front line workers in clean energy. The jet suit produces up to 144kg of thrust; the thrust to weight ratio works out to be greater than any known jet fighter we are aware of."
In Grimsby, where Orsted operates the world's largest offshore wind farm, the £14 million East Coast Hub has already been likened to The Thunderbirds' Tracy Island, with co-ordination of helicopters, small crew transfer vessels and the growing fleet of ship-sized service operation vessels, which come complete with workshops, turbine bridges and smaller craft to deploy.
Continual improvements bring increased manoeuvrability and faster deployment to the jet suits, with enormous time savings already having been found and proven against conventional access methods on foot or by helicopter.
The main areas of focus for the jet suit paramedic would be on-site triage and urgent casualty response that should drastically improve patient stability and survivability.
Andy Mawson, director of operations at GNAAS, said: “We think the jet suit paramedic will speed up the response to some hard to access patients in the Lake District, and allow us to reach more patients. But in order to know for sure, we are putting it to the test.
“The most recent trials in the area, held at the start of the month, were a great success and showed how far and how quickly the jet suit can reach otherwise inaccessible locations. Thanks to Ørsted, this incredible dream could become a reality.”
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