Closing the “Care in the Air” Capability Gap for Severe Lung Injury: The Landstuhl Acute Lung Rescue Team and Extracorporeal Lung Support

Abstract

ALeRT successfully transported 24 casualties from the combat zones to Germany. Without the ALeRT, these patients would have remained in the combat theater as significant consumers of limited deployed medical resources. Pumpless extracorporeal lung assistance is already within the ALeRT armamentarium, but has only been used for one aeromedical evacuation. Modern extracorporeal membrane oxygenation systems hold promise as a feasible capability for aeromedical evacuation.