Yesterday, a member of The BPL Bible team went to check out reports of the Air Ambulance landing in Layton. He was able to catch some footage and photos of the helicopter landing on land close to Kingscote Park.
We just thought we’d write up a piece as part of a new series of articles from us to thank as many of our local key workers at this time. Some of whom are not in the forefront of people’s minds.
The North West Air Ambulance Charity works 365 days a year. Workers don’t get a break just because the UK is in lockdown – if anything, their job just got a lot harder.
In 2019, the North West Air Ambulance service flew 2335 missions! It requires £9.5m funding every year to keep running.
As recently, as March 2020, the Air Ambulance Charity was given a huge boost in resources when funds, including those raised by charitable donations from residents across the North West, enabled the service to move into a hangar at Blackpool Airport.
This new space allows the service to store the air ambulance along with the response cars owned by the charity. Amazingly, the service was running from portacabins for 2 decades prior to this!
The new facilities allows the air ambulance to be stored in a suitable building, not only shielding it from the elements when it is not in use, but also providing staff with a workspace to work on maintenance and repairs when needed. The helicopter requires around £4m to stay in top condition throughout the year and so this work environment is important to ensure the financial security of the service for the future.
Not only does the hangar mean that the vehicles used by the service can be kept safe and away from the elements, but this is the first time that air ambulance crews have access to shower facilities and a kitchen. When you’ve been working ins wet and muddy conditions, attending serious incidents, it must be nice for the crew to at least be able to get a shower and something to eat when they get back to base.
In March, the North West Air Ambulance service flew 255 missions. This involved:
- 44 Road Traffic Incidents
- 6 Sport/Leisure Incidents
- 71 Medical Incidents
- 54 Accidents
- 5 Hospital Transfers
As of yesterday, April 24th, the NWAA Charity has agreed to partner with the North West Ambulance Service. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent health crisis, this new inter-hospital patient transfer service has been set up to help save more lives.
The latest collaboration allows critically ill patients to be transferred quickly to hospital so that they can receive much needed ICU treatment, including being transferred from one hospital to another that may have more ICU resources available to treat the patient.
Thank You North West Air Ambulance Service for everything that you are doing to help us get the medical treatment that we need! Keep going!
