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Mark goes to Spaceschool part 9
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spc9.1.mp3
Picture of air ambulance with rotas turning.
spc9.2.mp3
but once it was in the air the rockets fired and the ambulance flew forwards. It seemed to move very slowly at first.
"Can we not go any faster?" said Mark.
"We must not accelerate too quickly," said the pilot. The g forces would hurt the patient".
Mark was worried about Philip.
He seemed very ill. Mark knew that the special hospital in Paris must be very good but it seemed a long way to go.
The rocket ambulance took off like a helicopter with its rotas turning.
Picture of Air amublance with rockets firing,
spc9.3.mp3
"I do not understand," said Mark.
"Well this has puzzled people for a long time," said the pilot. When steam engines were first invented some people said that no one could live at 50 miles per hour. Now travelling quickly will do you no harm at all if the journey is smooth. You will not be harmed at 50 miles per hour or 500 miles per hour or 5000 miles per hour. But if you speed up too quickly this produces g forces. Perhaps you have been in an aeroplane that has speeded up when it was taking off. You feel as if the seat were pushing you in the back. This is a g force and it can harm you if it is too great. We have to be very careful if we have an injured patient because speeding up too quickly could make them a lot worse. Now we are going faster and faster but you will hardly notice it. If you look at this dial you will see that we are now travelling at 2000 kilometres per hour. We will soon be going even faster."
"Now," said the ambulanceman, "Let’s have a look at Philip’s blood pressure. It’s still going down but we should be able to get to the hospital in time. There is plenty of oxygen in his blood and that is good. "
spc9.4.mp3
"We will set up a drip. "
"What is the idea of that? " said Mark.
"Well Philip lost some blood so we need to put more fluid into his veins.
That means that his heart will have enough fluid to pump around. It will work better then."
spc 9.5.mp3
Philip started looking a bit better.
After only 20 minutes, Mark saw the hospital. "We will land over there," said the pilot.
He pressed a button and the rockets stopped firing. The rotor began spinning again and the ambulance landed like a helicopter on the helipad.
Picture of hospital
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