London’s Air Ambulance treated 39 trauma patients in Barking and Dagenham last year.
The charity, which treats patients in time-critical situations, was called out to 1,797 patients across the city in 2017, and also attended the Westminster attack and Grenfell fire.
Paramedics and advanced trauma doctors are sent out either in helicopters or rapid response cars. A flight from the Whitechapel base to Barking and Dagenham takes three minutes.
Lead clinician Dr Gareth Grier said: “Sadly, through 2017 the number of missions where a patient has been stabbed or shot has risen. It is not unusual now for our teams to perform open chest surgery for stab wounds twice in a single day. This would have been unheard of a few years back.
“But our world leading treatments means that we can give these and other patients the best possible chance of survival.
“The challenge we have is to innovate further to help our patients even more.”
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