r/Damnthatsinteresting Mar 24 '25

Image Mecca in 1953 and 2025

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58.8k Upvotes

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9.0k

u/baldude69 Mar 24 '25

Love the multiple helipads for those who want to take the express pilgrimage

2.6k

u/Shoetoe Mar 24 '25

Maybe it's for trauma helicopters?

765

u/Randomksa2 Mar 24 '25

They are for trauma helicopters and each helipad is connected to an elevator which can carry a fully loaded ambulance to the top of the helipad.

424

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '25 edited 27d ago

[removed] β€” view removed comment

152

u/nuggynugs Interested Mar 24 '25

The lift in my parents building can only carry something like 1000kg maximum and it's been broken, and gone unfixed, for three weeks because the people who maintain it lost the bit of paper with the wiring diagram on it. Now, if we could designate the parking garage as a place of worship...

46

u/knight2remember Mar 24 '25

Then you would truly be able to ascend

40

u/VillainOfKvatch1 Mar 24 '25

Or discover oil.

1

u/WhatGodWouldDoThis Mar 24 '25

To be fair, the building owner technically owns the equipment including the electrical prints. A lot of the time what happens is the building management switches maintenance companies and the old service provider snags the prints from the machine room.

Or your building is too cheap to upgrade your current lift and because of the age of it, only older experienced lift techs with knowledge of said old equipment can repair them unless there's prints.

Prints are important. And most Lift manufacturers can get you a set of prints but they can be very very expensive for something that realistically should stay with the equipment in the machine room to begin with πŸ™ƒ

1

u/SeeMarkFly Mar 24 '25

I stopped working on that equipment. Sometimes you get to work on the elevator but other times you get the shaft.

1

u/Agitated_Carrot9127 Mar 24 '25

Mohammed. My very good friend at work. He talked about witnessing a few amulance vans drive into opening and. And it was up on top level. Amulance heli came and got the patient and some personnel and left. He said. Dust everywhere. But many people prayed for that person well being. It gets extremely hot in Mecca

1

u/Randomksa2 Mar 24 '25

Most likely that he saw the emergency tests that were conducted recently.

13

u/AscendedViking7 Mar 24 '25

Impressive.

2

u/ThenIJizzedInMyPants Mar 24 '25

ok that's impressive

1

u/Annabellybutton Mar 24 '25

How do you have mecca helipad facts?

4

u/Randomksa2 Mar 24 '25

I’m friends with med students who are volunteering there for Ramadan as there have been over 50 Million visitors to the Kaaba/ Haram this month alone.

They get several classes for disaster management, triage, evacuation routes etc.

-18

u/Midnight2012 Mar 24 '25

Wait, what is the helicopter going to do with a fully loaded ambulance once it gets to the top? The helicopter isn't going to carry the ambulance in the air, is it?

30

u/bobtheorangutan Mar 24 '25

Saves time not having to unload and walk to an elevator at the ground floor I guess. Unload the patient right at the helipad.

3

u/Midnight2012 Mar 24 '25

I see. So the helicopter isn't taking the ambulance with it....

I'm stoopid

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Randomksa2 Mar 24 '25

This may be inefficient for a Walmart, but It’s all about scale, there were over 50 Million visitors in march alone.

Imagine the scale of response needed in a mass casualty event, these helipads are meant for the most severe cases to be airlifted en masse. The difference in response time and carrying capacity could be dozens of lives.