Drone carrying blood samples from AIIMS Rishikesh to Kotdwar base hospital crashes

Kotdwar: A drone carrying blood samples from AIIMS, Rishikesh to Kotdwar base hospital crashed in a forest in Pauri district on Monday, an official said.

The drone was flown as part of an experiment to take essential medicines to the needy in remote areas, Chief Medical Superintendent of the base hospital Vijayesh Bhardwaj said.

It seems, the drone developed a technical snag and crashed in a forest in Kalal Ghati area before it could reach the base hospital, Bhardwaj said.

The exact cause will be known after examination of the drone and the crash site, he added.

The site of the crash is around 15 km from Kotdwar. The drone was capable of flying at a height of 400 ft and carrying a weight of 8 kg at a time, the official said.

As per a media report in HT, Harish Thapliyal, public relations officer AIIMS Rishikesh, said as part of the institute’s efforts to ensure quick delivery of medicines and samples in remote hilly areas of the state, a drone was sent with a 2.5 kg load of blood components to Kotdwar Base Hospital, over nearly 55 km away. “This distance normally takes over three hours by road, but the drone covers it in just one hour. But due to bad weather, the drone crashed 15 to 20 km before the Kotdwar hospital, hitting the Eucalyptus trees at Jashodpur. The local police have recovered the drone,” he said.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that a key aspect of drones is that they can be used in healthcare during emergency response, not only for providing vaccines and medicines but also for supplying blood bags. The inaugural flight in a validation study carried 10 units of whole blood samples from The Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) and Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC). This drone sortie was in the visual line of sight conducted at Jaypee Institute of Information Technology (JIIT), Noida.