[lakis]

This reminded me of "Police Camera Action - The Liver Run" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU

30 Minutes to travel 27 miles across London in the middle of the day ! Stansted Airport, Essex to Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London

[jon-wood]

David Nott’s book War Doctor includes a tale of him being called in to perform urgent surgery in central London, having just finished a flying lesson in Essex. He apparently called 999, asked for the Police, and after explaining the situation a car was despatched to take him at high speed through traffic. Sadly I don’t have the sort of career that would ever justify that but it sounds like great fun.

[mattlondon]

Interesting. I've seen similar "convoys" of police cars with a motorcycle platoon etc with them many times. I assumed it was some VIP. I never considered it might be a organ transplant!

I do wonder if they'd do that today - save one person's life by ploughing through central London at 70mph? There are so many cyclists and pedestrians not paying attention - it would feel safer to just helicopter it over?

[Ichthypresbyter]

They would normally have used the police helicopter back then too, but it was grounded due to a recent crash.

London now has an air ambulance service, which it didn't at the time- though the air ambulance also have some impressively fast cars (Skoda Octavia vRS IIRC) for when conditions don't allow the helicopter to fly.