Erwin Prechtl from Freising is the longest-serving air ambulance medic from the early days around 1970. He reports to the daily newspaper from the past five decades.
Freising
- "It's like a stubborn virus", says Erwin Prechtl, "Once he has caught you, he won't let you go".
It is the helper or rescuer virus that the 77-year-old Freisinger carries.
He has been infected since he first sniffed the air of a BRK ambulance at the age of 18.
Today Erwin Prechtl is the longest-serving air ambulance paramedic from the early days of 1970. He helped organize the establishment of the rescue control centers in Bavaria.
And - until a few years ago - he brought home the seriously ill and accident victims from all over the world.
A thoroughbred medic who has a lot to tell - also from the darker sides of a life saver.
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For the 50th anniversary of ADAC air rescue, Erwin Prechtl met with the still active pilot Walter Missenhardt.
By the way, he knows Freising well: On March 2nd, he landed on the Karlwirt crossroads due to an accident.
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The matter was actually already clear when Erwin Prechtl sniffed the BRK air at the Freising Sani Column in 1961: “I immediately saw that I enjoy it.
That it has to become my job. ”Because there was nothing going on in Freising, Prechtl became a permanent“ paramedic in the accident rescue service and ambulance ”at the BRK district association in Munich.
This was followed by courses and internships in clinics, where the young paramedic gained experience in the intensive care unit as well as in emergency aid.
“We learned to pierce and intubate infusions,” remembers the 77-year-old - “and you even had to pass a state-certified disinfector exam.” It was only after eight years of hard practice that you were appointed “paramedic in the BRK”.
The sanitary profession was not a job for fearful rabbits
Practical use - in the 1960s that meant a series of horrific traffic accidents.
It was the time before crash tests and stiffened bodies, before the era of airbags and seat belts.
"The mass accidents on the A 9 when there was thick fog, for example, were notorious," says Prechtl.
Dozens of cars wedged together - injured, dead.
“As a paramedic you work like a machine”.
Who to help first?
Perform triage and request additional vehicles?
“It all happens automatically.
The shock only comes afterwards. ”Prechtl:“ For me, the worst accidents were and always are, where children were seriously injured or killed.
Back then I had four small children myself - and you can see them in front of you. ”There were no crisis intervention teams at the time.
“Then we just tried to help the parents at the scene of the accident as well as possible.
We would probably have needed support ourselves. ”The sanitary job was not a job for fearful rabbits anyway.
Today there are over 300 ambulance stations in Bavaria and the ground-based emergency doctor service has long been established.
In addition, 15 rescue helicopters are now available nationwide.
In Prechtl's early days, the paramedics at the scene of the accident were often completely on their own.
"In the 1970s we were allowed to give an infusion or intubation, but not inject anything."
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Men from the very beginning: Pilot Wolfgang Starke, Dr.
med Dieter Strehle and air ambulance medic Erwin Prechtl (from right) took over this brand new rescue helicopter on December 27, 1971.
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Then air rescue in Bavaria was born.
On November 1, 1970, the first bright yellow ADAC rescue helicopter was put into service.
Being able to bring rescuers to remote accident sites within minutes - that was a new dimension.
And of course that fascinated Erwin Prechtl, who had just qualified for the job of the flying medic with his eight years of practical experience.
The Freisinger switched from the ground to the helicopter in the summer of 1971 - in a phase of paralysis.
A disaster had just shaken the young air ambulance.
On August 17, 1971, the tail rotor of the rescue helicopter touched the ground when landing near Allach.
The doctor who was just getting out of the car to provide assistance was fatally injured.
Should one stop with rescue aviation again?
No, that's why the Fliegerstaffel Süd from the Federal Border Guard in Oberschleißheim took over the air rescue with a Bell UH 1 D for four months, until a new - bright yellow - BO 105 was put into service at the end of December.
On board for the maiden flight: Erwin Prechtl.
Until 1977, the Freisinger was the third man on board alongside the pilot and the doctor as an air paramedic.
Turbulent years that Erwin Prechtl will never forget: "There is hardly anything that you as a paramedic have not seen or experienced".
Even today he has nice connections to some of the casualties from back then who were rescued from the air thanks to the quick help.
"Some still say thank you today," reports Erwin Prechtl, "and that is a thank you that comes from the heart."
The "black year" of 1975 remains indelible
The year 1975 remains indelible for the Flugsani - “a black year”.
On the one hand, the worst train accident to date in Bavaria occurred on June 8 near Warngau, with 41 dead and 126 injured.
Erwin Prechtl and his colleague Günter Höcherl - also from Freising - were on duty in the Munich rescue control center and had to organize and coordinate this large-scale operation.
"In the end we managed to get seven helicopters into the air alongside vehicles from all over Upper Bavaria."
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The rescue helicopters landed in the garden of the BRK home on Freising Rotkreuzstrasse in the 1970s.
From there it went to the Sanka to the nearby district hospital, which did not yet have a heliport.
The paramedic with the infusion is Erwin Prechtl, who was around 30 at the time.
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Then October 2nd came.
Prechtl was just about to switch from the control center to the helicopter when he was called back to the office due to the illness of a colleague - which saved his life.
During a mission south of Munich, the helicopter in which a young colleague was sitting instead of Prechtl crashed.
The entire crew died.
Prechtl: "For the young man who flew with me instead of me, it was the first and last mission".
In 1977 aviation was over.
Prechtl was brought in by the BRK Presidium to help set up the rescue control centers in Bavaria.
It took until 1984 for the last of 26 control centers in Erding to go online.
But the helper virus never let go.
From 1984 to 1993 Prechtl kept bringing ethnic Germans back to Germany with the ambulance as part of the family reunification from Romania.
The Freising driver drove 28 times with the Sanka, which was loaded up to the top with relief supplies, and came back with hopeful people - all on a voluntary basis.
He had a serious accident on one of the tours.
In the fog on December 3, 1989, through no fault of its own, the ambulance crashed into a truck that was standing sideways and was attempting to turn around.
Prechtl, in the passenger seat, suffered severe vertebral injuries.
"Seldom have people been so happy to see us"
Until a few years ago, Erwin Prechtl was busy repatriating the sick and injured, also on a voluntary basis for the BRK district association in Freising.
Whether an accident victim with multiple fractures in Florence or a man with a heart attack in Naples - "everyone just wanted to go home," recalls Erwin Prechtl.
"Seldom have people been so happy to see us."
Once a patient was fetched from Santander (Spain) and the return trip took five days because the seriously ill patient had to be treated in hospitals repeatedly at night.
"And once we even brought a paraplegic home from Libya," remembers the Freising man: "And when we landed with the ambulance on a desert airport, two Migs from Gaddafi thundered over us as a“ greeting ”."
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In the summer of 1971, the Federal Border Guard took over the air rescue for four months after a helicopter crash.
But here any help came too late.
Serious traffic accidents were the order of the day in the 1970s.
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Now Erwin Prechtl is sitting in his house on Freising's Goldberg over a treasure trove of memories - photos, newspaper articles and now even television reports.
The longest-serving air ambulance was also interviewed for the 50th anniversary of ADAC air rescue.
A hero?
“No,” says Erwin Prechtl in retrospect: “It's not a special achievement.
It's just a job that I enjoyed doing. "
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