PATIENT STORIES
Email from Matthew Webster - 09.05.10
To the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Team,
On Sunday 9th May 2010 I was out on a mountain bike ride on the Purdown hills near to where I live in Bristol. Towards the end of the ride I miss-judged a slope and had a bad fall. The paramedics first on the scene decided that it would be too difficult and risky (due to a possible neck injury) to hand carry me some distance over rough ground to an ambulance, so they called for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance who were quickly on the scene to prepare me for and then transfer me to Frenchay Hospital.
The diagnosis was a broken collar bone which has now undergone surgery and I am now on the slow path to hopefully a full recovery.
I wanted to give my deepest thanks to the helicopter crew for their swiftness in rescuing me and for their professionalism.
Best wishes and many thanks.
Matthew Webster
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Letter from Nailsea & District Footpath Group – 10.01.09
Dear Sirs,
On Sunday 4th January a party from Nailsea and District Footpath Group were walking in the Bath area when one of our members slipped and broke her ankle. The place where the accident occurred was a distance from any road and on the side of a steep hill. When the ambulance arrived the Paramedic decided that, due to the frozen ground and steepness of the hill, it would be too dangerous to carry the patient to the top of the hill on a stretcher, and so called in the air ambulance. After 3 attempts to land on the hillside, the pilot managed to find a small area flat enough to land on, not far from the patient. We were all extremely impressed by the skill and determination he showed by landing in a seemingly impossible place.
In grateful appreciation for the efforts of the Wiltshire Air Ambulance that day, I am enclosing a donation to your Appeal from Nailsea and District Footpath Group.
Once again, many thanks for the work of the Air Ambulance on that day.
Yours faithfully
Gordon Bennett
Chairman
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On Thursday 9th August this year the air ambulance picked
me up in Great Somerford, after a fall from a horse. I
have been meaning to thank you for the smooth ride to hospital
ever since. I know you deal with much more serious incidents,
and I am never a good patient, but I have discovered that
travel by road would have been incredibly uncomfortable.
I wanted to tell you that
I was supposed to be teaching at pony club camp later that
day, and the day before the only boy in my group had said
how much he wanted a ride in a helicopter, and I had told
him that I hoped he never needed to as a result of a fall.
Once they all knew that I would recover, everyone found
this conversation ammusingly prophetic and helicopters
are now a banned topic of conversation at pony club, but
I hope to persuade them to help me with some fund raising.
Please pass my heartfelt thanks to the crew, I can't remember
any names, but they were great that day. |
