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Born Letting Specialist
Our charity of the year
The Air Ambulance is run by three parts: The helicopter and pilot are leased from a company, two paramedics are supplied by the Ambulance Service (and they often have a volunteer doctor on board too) and then the charity raises funds. We were shocked to learn that the charity receives no government support or National Lottery funding. All of the money they need for equipment, fuel, salaries, insurance etc. comes from fundraising. Being a helicopter paramedic is a great achievement. They go through a TOUGH interview process involving fitness tests and simulating treating a patient (on a £30,000 dummy who is very lifelike – his tongue can even swell up!) whilst about 6 people are watching and judging! The paramedics work six weeks in the air and six weeks in a land ambulance and the team operate in daylight hours (currently 7am until 7pm). Kevin and Tracey were the paramedics we met on Wednesday. They have worked as ambulance technicians and paramedics for 7 and 10 years respectively and both joined the air ambulance service last year. Unlike normal ‘land’ paramedics who can ask for help if needed, these guys are expected to be at the top of their game constantly and this involves heavy amounts of training, not just at the start of their job but on a monthly basis. 999 calls are listened in to, and a judgement is made on whether the air ambulance should attend. One of the guys who does this is a trained heli-paramedic and therefore has a really good idea of when they can help and when they can’t. When they get the call, they use the map in their base to find out the heading and distance and the paramedic then navigates. They are able to do this because they have an intensive two-week training course in navigation before they can start the job. They go out, the pilot gets lost on purpose, and the paramedic then has to navigate to the correct location! Their real advantage is in their speed and ability to access isolated locations where it would take a land ambulance a long time to reach – farms, or horse-related accidents in fields. Alf, the pilot, told us he even once landed BOB on a lock! From their base in Benson, they can reach Bicester in 7-8mins and Milton Keynes 15 mins! We had the chance to sit in the helicopter and were surprised at how confined it is! There are two seats in the front, and two in the back, along with room for the stretcher. They can take the rear seat out to fit two stretchers if necessary, and they sometimes call in help from other services (and, likewise, are sometimes called to other services) such as Hampshire, going to Southampton or the Isle of Wight. The crew tend to treat the patient at the scene before transporting them to the appropriate hospital, because it can be difficult to treat in such a confined place. However, this is sometimes unavoidable, and new equipment helps with this. For example, LUCAS CPR is a machine which can do precise chest compressions (to the right depth, with the right frequency). It is expensive, but helps them massively – I’m not sure we can imagine how difficult it must be to do chest compressions in a confined space, whilst in the air! Money raised can purchase more items which help them to work effectively. The crew were really passionate about ‘every little helping’ as most of their funding comes from smaller donations. Although it is a tough task to raise all the funds they need, in some ways it is better than being government funded, because they can be more autonomous about how they run the service. We are really looking forward to helping BOB by both volunteering and raising funds, if you want to help us with the latter, please visit our site: www.justgiving.com/fkletting |
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