Italy / SEUAM, the drone for transporting drugs and defibrillators, starts testing in October

By Cristiano Antonino Last updated Sep 6, 2022

SEUAM (Sanitary Emergency Urban Air Mobility), the project devised by the Società Italiana Sistema 118 to provide support to 118 Operations Centres and speed up rescue and resuscitation operations in critical situations, such as in the event of cardiac arrest, will start operating from October with the first experimental flights

Life-saving drones, SIS 118 President on SEUAM

“We have decided to use drones,” explains SIS 118 President Mario Balzanelli, “to support the resuscitation of those whose lives are in danger, significantly reducing intervention times in certain critical situations with the aim of stabilising patients as quickly as possible and saving even more lives than current standards.

The drones will make it possible to quickly transport an automatic defibrillator (which, when indicated, will deliver the electric discharge autonomously) to the scene of a sudden cardiac arrest, or blood and blood products in support of medical and nursing stations of the 118 emergency services that have to manage a patient in a serious state of haemorrhagic shock, as well as immediately necessary drugs and antidotes.

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SEUAM project, the characteristics of the drone

The drone has a maximum take-off weight of 25Kg, a net payload of 2.5Kg and a wingspan of 2 metres. Its cruising speed of up to 160 Km/h will “also allow us to visualise victims who are in difficult-to-reach situations or in areas where our crews cannot access.

Or even bring support to rescuers and the population in maxi-emergencies,’ Balzanelli points out.

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The project’s technical partner is the Campania-based aerospace consortium Caltec

“The remotely piloted aircraft,’ says Carlo Villani Aquilino, President of Caltec, ‘comes from the design and certification experience of aeronautical equipment and products gained over some 40 years.

In December, the results on a simulated scenario of a sudden cardiac arrest will be presented to the scientific community and institutions, followed by experimentation in various operational scenarios.

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