this descriptive, exploratory study was performed using a quantitative approach to address the profile of victims attended by the pernambuco prehospital air service. the events were evaluated from august 2007 to july 2008, corresponding to the first year of the hangar working in recife. in the studied period, 283 event forms were studied, with an average 23 events per month. regarding the flights, 66% were rescue flights with an answer-time of 11 minutes. as for the causes, 79% were external, mainly traffic accidents. most victims were male, with a median age range of 34 years. the rescue of severe cases should be fast and effective, thus this study analyzed the association between the severity of a victim and the answer-time.
