john power / senior fire officer / HEMS Unit

We meet John Power one morning at 8am on the Royal London’s Heli-pad. It was a cold and necessarily early appointment for myself and photographer Victoria Nightingale.  The entire fire unit were on specialised training and we had a short window of 30 minutes to get our man.  Each year for two weeks the Royal London’s specialised helicopter is taken out of service for full maintenance.  During this time the dedicated teams that work on the hospitals roof remain on duty, updating their skills.

Not surprisingly John comes from an aviation fire fighting background and has worked on the Heli-pad for over 15 years.  As Senior Fire Officer his main duties are the management of aircraft and hospital safety.  The fire team’s time is split between maintenance of the pad, its auxiliary systems, and operation room duties that include reading meteorological reports.

When we met John he and his team were undergoing ‘driver training’. This involved mock runs across the city at high speed in one of the hospital’s specialised cars. The training aims to emulate the journeys taken every day by car ambulance drivers, delivering vital medication and aid. This new training allows fire fighters to assist Para-medics in the delivery of critical resources to accident scenes when not engaged on the roof.