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Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access published online on July 7, 2004
Annals of Occupational Hygiene, doi:10.1093/annhyg/meh024
Copyright © 2004 by the British Occupational Hygiene Society.
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Received May 9, 2003
Accepted November 28, 2003

Article

Noise Exposure During Alpine Helicopter Rescue Operations

Thomas E. A. H. Küpper 1*, Jürgen Steffgen 2, Paul Jansing 3

1 Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technical University of Aachen, Kullenhofstrasse 50, D-52057 Aachen, Germany
2 Department of Nephrology and Rheumatology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
3 State Institute for Occupational Health and Safety of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, Germany

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tkuepper{at}ukaachen.de.


  Abstract

Objectives: We estimated the noise exposure of crews working in alpine helicopter rescue systems.

Methods: Noise levels of the the helicopters used (Alouette III, Alouette II ‘Lama’, Ecureuil and BK 117) were measured with a device according to class 2 DIN IEC 651. These data were combined with the flight data of the personnel to evaluate the equivalent noise level according to DIN 45645-2.

Results and conclusions: While the risk to patients should be limited to temporary threshold shifts the crew members are regularly exposed to equivalent noise levels of >85 dB(A) and, therefore, are at risk of permanent threshold shifts. Consequences for crew fitness to fly and for noise prevention (crew and patients) are discussed.


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