Iceland

Last Saturday I was on a somewhat different businesstrip. I went as an observer on an exercise with the Swedish Natonal Air Medevac (SNAM) to Iceland. That meant we had to gather already at 05.15 at the airport and then flew to Iceland, where according to the exercise; a tourist bus, with a lot of Swedish skiers, had gone off the road and down a hill side and now there were a lot of badly injured people that needed transport back to Sweden as the local hospital was badly strained. The SNAM is a normal Boing 737 from SAS that in six hours can be rebuilt to an ambulance aircraft able to transport 6 intensive care patience and six less but still badly injured persons, about 30 relatives or lightly injured persons and a staff of nine doctors and about 15 nurses. Very impressive I must say!



As Akureyri is on the northern coast of Iceland we had a nice flight right across the island. Looking down reminded me of flying over Afghanistan. So empty. Just the barren mountains with snow covered tops and some streams between them. But apart from that I guess there are not many similarities between the two countries. I still remember how an Icelandic journalist told me about the amazment of president Karzai when he met his Icelandic counterpart. Learning that Iceland had no neighbouring coutries and had never been to war he concluded that it must be a happy country.



It is almost hard to believe that Akureyri is the second largest town on Iceland, outside the Reyjkavik area. With only 17 200 inhabtants!



Getting out of the plan was quite amazing, the airport was very beautifully situated at the end of a bay of the sea, between the green hills.



The SNAM team.



Even though it was only from a distance I am glad that I saw some Iceland-ponies.





While the "patients" were made ready, the rest of us got a short bustrip through the town.



So; the "patients" are all onboard and ready for the transport back home to Sweden.