Definitely this was probably "fun" for the driver. But I do suspect something wasn't above board here. I know it was mentioned in the article, but the choice to not use a helicopter was... putting a lot of people at unnecessary risk. Which is pretty stupid since you're trying to save someone's life.<p>Hopefully someone does this with a copter in the future.
While a Rover SD1 3500 isn't a Lamborghini, this video is still worth a watch.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU</a><p>27 miles in 30 minutes into and through Central London (they drive past Buckingham Palace) on a Friday afternoon to deliver a liver for transplant.<p>As for why they used cars- at the time London had no helicopter ambulance service, and the police helicopters were grounded for investigation following a crash two days previously. The box with the liver wouldn't have fit on the back of a police motorcycle.
The Dutch police bought Porsche 964 Targas for motorway patrols:<p><a href="https://witmerodijk.nl/CarImages/1681/DSC_2492_703381.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://witmerodijk.nl/CarImages/1681/DSC_2492_703381.jpg</a><p>The open roof allowed officers to stand up in the car and direct traffic, while the rear-mounted air-cooled engine meant the car could reverse along the hard shoulder for long distances- they also fitted a rear-facing siren.<p>Allegedly it was official policy that only officers who were married with children were allowed to drive the Porsches, as it was thought that they would be more careful.
Nice story but it didn't take 2 hours. The italian media, reported that the trip took at least 3 hours making it a bit more reasonable. It's not possible to drive on an Italian Autostrada at the average speed claimed in the article without endangering the lives of the drivers as well as of all the other vehicles.
How is it possible to maintain an average speed that high on public roads? Even if you had lights on, you’d come up on people so quickly they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough. And surely they had to stop for fuel at least once unless they have some special gas tanks fitted? Seems difficult
Assuming this is real, it is absolutely reckless and just not needed for kidneys. They can stay on ice for 24 hours or longer. Nobody ever needed an emergency kidney transplant, thanks to dialysis. Even if a helipad wasn’t on the hospital any clearing would do. And if the weather was too poor you use an ambulance or special transport going at a safer speed, which would still get there with time to spare.
In Ireland there is a charity called Blood Bikes (<a href="http://bloodbikes.ie/" rel="nofollow">http://bloodbikes.ie/</a>) where people volunteer to quickly transport somewhat urgent medical supplies including blood (hence the name), test samples, medication, medical files etc. They don't do organ transport though. I presume that is still generally done by the ambulance service.
Worth mentioning that the car was donated to the police by Lamborghini: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27574548#:~:text=Lamborghini%20has%20donated%20a%20specially,Italian%20news%20agency%20ANSA%20reports" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27574548#...</a>.
For years I had this concept in mind of deploying a fleet of supercars across hospitals around the mid-atlantic as rapid organ shuttles, but quick research made it clear that the idea would probably only be practical in a limited spread of circumstances, more limited than would make sense to justify the service.<p>Still, if there's a job I'd love to do, it'd probably be this.
Using a Lamborghini may seem extravagant and unsafe, but it's clearly cheaper and it's not clear to me that it would be any less safe, even at quite high speeds. Helicopters crash quite frequently.
This is so unbelievably stupid and highly doubt there is any legitimate reason for police officers to have supercars in their fleets. This is clearly a cross waste of money, is dangerous, and totally pointless. Just use a helicopter and as another poster noted, there's totally fine place a helicopter could land close to the hospital.<p>The Italian people should be outraged at this profligate (and self serving) waste of resources. Especially in a country that doesn't even have monetary sovereignty.
Cars are dangerous so they should have used a helicopter, helicopters aren't dangerous, also the speeds are a lie, lamborginis can't drive that fast on roads, especially cos you can't pass on the left in Europe. Glad to tap in to hn expertise again this morning.