Shropshire Magazine

The air ambulance prepares to fly to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital after being called to an incident in north Shropshire

The county air ambulance is a vital strand of the emergency services – but it is entirely dependent on donations to continue operating. Ben Bentley goes behind the scenes

The county air ambulance is a vital strand of the emergency services – but it is entirely dependent on donations to continue operating. Ben Bentley goes behind the scenes

It is a charity which people pray they will never use. But it is a huge reassurance to know that the County Air Ambulance in Shropshire is there, on standby, should disaster strike.

People like Sarah Pryce, now aged 19, know only too well the value of the service – 12 years ago it saved her life.

Sarah Pryce, pictured with her parents Dennis and Linda, has good reason to be grateful for the Air Ambulance’s continuing operation

It was during a special Sunday dinner to celebrate Father’s Day when Sarah, then aged seven, began losing co-ordination. Within minutes she was unable to speak and unable to see.

The last thing she can remember is missing the plate with her cutlery and stabbing the table. Her condition rapidly deteriorated and, with no time to wait for an ambulance, her parents Dennis and Linda rushed Sarah to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital from their home in Crew Green.

Sarah, who a couple of years earlier had undergone a kidney transplant, went into intensive care, her life in serious danger.

Fortunately, Sarah recalls little of the drama, but the date of it is etched into her memory.

“It was Sunday, June 18, 1995,” she says without hesitation. “I remember eating my dinner but I don’t recall anything after that.”

Speaking at her home, the full horror of the event is picked up by Sarah’s mother Linda.

“We thought there was something wrong; she was missing the plate with her knife and fork,” she says. “We rang the doctor and he thought it was a brain haemorrhage. We had to rush her to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital but it all happened so quickly – we were eating lunch at 1pm and by mid-afternoon Sarah was on a ventilator. It was very frightening. It happened out of the blue and we felt helpless.”

Having been airlifted from the RSH to Birmingham Children’s Hospital by an Air Ambulance helicopter, doctors there discovered that a virus in her new kidney had left her with a magnesium deficiency and the condition was able to be treated immediately.

Sarah’s first memory of the scare was coming round in Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

“I remember a nurse in the hospital asking ‘Why didn’t you come on the bus like everyone else?’. I was only seven, so making light of the situation was probably the best way.

“I was on a ventilator and unable to speak and I remember writing on a piece of paper ‘I’m hungry’. That’s when everyone realised I was alright.”

Sarah is just one of thousands of people who have had cause to use the County Air Ambulance during the course of a year. On average, the Air Ambulance will fly between 250 and 300 missions each month – potentially more than 3,500 a year.

The majority of these missions result in the treatment of patients involved in serious road traffic accidents, trauma cases or medical transfers where rapid treatment and conveyance to regional trauma hospitals becomes a matter of life or death.

“Fifty per cent are road accidents, the other 50 per cent is made up of horse riders, sports injuries, falls and agricultural incidents – such as people injured in a thresher machine involving serious limb amputations,” says the organisation’s operations manager Ian Clayton, who is based at RAF Cosford.

But the people who benefit are not always caught up in Casualty-style dramas. Ian explains: “It’s not always gory; it could be a heart-attack patient in a relatively remote part of the county such as Cleobury Mortimer.”

Or a girl who just minutes earlier had been enjoying her Sunday lunch.

Humble

The regional Air Ambulance currently has three of the latest EC135 helicopters, based at RAF Cosford in Shropshire, Strensham on the M5 northbound services in Worcestershire and the East Midlands Airport near Nottingham, but its origins are far more humble: a single helicopter tied to a tree.

The County Air Ambulance was set up through West Midlands Ambulance Service in May, 1991, in response to the introduction of a new kind of life-saver: the paramedic.

Paul Weir, fundraising development manager for the Air Ambulance, says: “Paramedics had come into use on land ambulances and it demonstrated the importance of the ‘golden hour’ – if you can get a patient to hospital within that hour they stand a 40 per cent better chance of survival.

“And if you live in a rural area such as Shropshire, by road it might take 40 minutes to get to you, which is a good proportion of that golden hour taken up. Then it might be another 30-mile drive to a trauma unit.”

Originally called Air 5, the Air Ambulance and the tree it was tethered to by means of a rope, were at Halfpenny Green airfield just over the county border at Bobbington. By October 1991 the operation was relocated to its current home just down the road at RAF Cosford.

The presence of the service made an immediate impact in helping to save lives, and by 1996 a second helicopter was commissioned, with a third added to the fleet in 1999. The Cosford operation today flies rescue missions in five counties covering 8,000 square miles.

The County Air Ambulance continues its 16-year success story thanks to the generosity of the public, on which it relies to generate more than £3 million it needs each year in order to function.

Affection

Today, support for the Air Ambulance has never been greater, with public and corporate sponsors knowing no bounds when it comes to funding one of the largest air operations of its kind in the country. But Shropshire folk show particular affection for their Air Ambulance.

“They are far more supportive per head of population than any other county,” says Paul. “It’s probably because it is more rural and it has proved to be invaluable.”

The charity was established with the caveat that it would bear no cost to the NHS, yet because it is seen to work alongside the health service it cannot apply for lottery grants.

As Paul explains: “The County Air Ambulance continues to be funded solely by public donations. It costs around £3.5 million each year to provide the service, with no government money or lottery funding available to us.

“It is therefore vital that the public continues to support the charity to ensure that this vital life-saving operation is maintained.”

The service is keen to improve and refine its operation. To ensure future County Air Ambulance provision to the public a number of operational changes will be introduced during the next 12 months to benefit patients.

An additional investment of £600,000 will allow an increase in flying hours; as a result, a medical team and aircraft will be on standby to provide a 14-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week air operation.

The future placement of a flying doctor on board the Cosford helicopter at all times is another exciting development and The Shropshire Magazine’s cousin, the Shropshire Star, is playing a vital part in helping to raise the £70,000 it will cost each year to realise the scheme – which is, fittingly, called the Flying Doctor Appeal.

Benefit

Air Ambulance bosses say having an immediate care doctor with specialist trauma skills will significantly benefit patients, giving them an increased chance of survival and recovery. Paramedics on board rescue helicopters will also receive enhanced medical training, enabling flight crews to work with doctors on more complex clinical procedures.

The Air Ambulance is called out to help an injured walker on the Long Mynd

Sixteen years ago the service was run very much hand to mouth, and Ian Clayton remembers having to wait for donated cheques to clear before a helicopter could swing into action.

“When we first started we flew by the hour,” he says. “We had to phone the bank to see if the cheque had come come in and we’d say, right, we’ve got half an hour’s worth of flying.”

The County Air Ambulance is very much a home-grown organisation, with its founder, Bob Seaward, from Shropshire, and both pilots and many of the on-board paramedics hailing from the county. Ian Clayton himself lives in Newport.

It is no wonder, then, that the charity is one close to county folks’ hearts and that it is funded largely by them. Like the thousands of people who have the misfortune to call on the flying service every year, Sarah Pryce and her family are so indebted to the services of the County Air Ambulance that they are now active fundraisers and have generated more than £6,000 through activities such as charity bike rides, coffee mornings and buffet dances. Mum Linda has since become a volunteer co-ordinater for the charity.

Sarah herself, who works in a local restaurant, is today enjoying life to the full. “I never thought I would have to use the Air Ambulance but living in the countryside, so far away from a hospital, it is especially reassuring to know that the service is there,” she says.

“I’m very grateful to the County Air Ambulance – if I hadn’t been airlifted I would not be here today.”

• For more information or to find out how to donate to County Air Ambulance, visit www.countyairambulance.com. Contributions to the Flying Doctor Appeal should be sent to: Flying Doctor Appeal, Promotions Department, Shropshire Star, Ketley, Telford, Shropshire TF1 5HU.