As some of you know, when I am not designing graphics or running web sites I write for a series of medical technology blogs. As part of that, I research. And as part of that, I came across this amazing story.

This is the story of Alex Momont, a design engineer at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. He recently graduated by presenting his Master Thesis, a research project that we will come to later. You should know that Alex is one of only five people ever to achieve a maximum grade during the fifty years that the University has been open. What he worked on is spectacular. No other word does it justice.

Background: In the European Union, around 800,000 people per year suffer a cardiac arrest. Ambulance response times vary, but average at ten minutes from first call. Irreversible brain death occurs at around 4 to 6 minutes after the heart stops beating. First responders know before they even turn on the ambulance siren that 8% of cardiac arrest victims will need to be pronounced dead on arrival. Enter Alex.

Alex developed what is technically called an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAD. In regular speech, a drone. But not just a drone. Alex developed a network of drones. A network of lifesaving drones. Drones that can be on site with any patient inside a 12 square kilometer (5 Sq. Mile) radius in under 1 minute. Drones that incorporate two-way video and audio, and which are supported by 112 human operators and first-responders. Drones that, with this human backup, can walk lay people through how to use the flying defibrillators they carry.

The statistical average success rate for untrained lay people using an AED (defibrillator) is 20%. That means that even if you happen to have to hand a convenient defibrillator (they are not exactly hanging on every wall), 4 in 5 cardiac victims will still die. With the drones’ built-in audiovisual feedback from trained operators, the lay person success rate increases. Dramatically. We are talking 90%. 9 out of 10 victims will survive.

Drones are not subject to traffic delays. They take direct line of sight paths to their patients, guided unerringly to the exact GPS coordinates of the phone being used by the person calling in. Human operators can input destinations manually if required. Currently the ambulance drones move at up to 100 kph (60 mph). Work is already under way to increase that to 160 kph (100 mph). Which in many cases will bring the response time down to under thirty seconds.

Imagine this fleet of lifesaving worker bees navigating rush hour New York. Or a crowded subway platform. Or a rural farm, an hour from the nearest hospital. Or the top of a bridge, or the bottom of a cliff. Think of all the places an ambulance either cannot go or will take too long. Then imagine you are the one on the ground.

I for one would welcome the buzz of an approaching ambulance drone. Response time under 1 minute? Where do I sign?

Think this sounds like science fiction? Then why not watch the video.