In a single day, three medical evacuation flights carried out by members of the Air Surveillance Service (Spanish initials: SVA) of Costa Rica saved the lives of an elderly man, a pregnant woman and a little girl. Two of the rescue flights involved fixed-wing aircraft, and the other was carried out by a helicopter.

The first emergency flight took place in Alto Telire, a remote indigenous community in the Talamanca region. A 35-year old pregnant woman with pre-eclampsia syndrome and advanced cephalalgia was transported aboard MSP-007, a helicopter normally used for law enforcement purposes. As is customary among indigenous families in Costa Rica, the woman was accompanied by her sons as she was evacuated to the public health clinic in Horne Creek.

The second emergency flight involved the new King Air MSP-020 airplane, which was recently put into service after being confiscated from drug traffickers. A one-year old girl who had been in an auto accident was transported from Liberia, province of Guanacaste, to San Jose. This little girl suffered multiple trauma injuries; she is currently listed in stable condition at the National Children’s Hospital.

The third emergency flight involved the small aircraft MSP-0170, which traveled to Quepos in the Southern Pacific to transport an elderly man in a diabetic coma to the San Rafael Hospital in Alajuela.

The Air Surveillance Service is a special unit of the Ministry of Public Security (Spanish initials: MSP). Although the primary mission of this unit is to serve in a law enforcement capacity, the vast majority of missions flown by SVA pilots are medical evacuations. To this end, SVA aircraft now carry medical equipment aboard, and air crews are trained in emergency medical procedures.