Air Ambulance by Sean Taylor

28^th September 2023 Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance – Sean Taylor

Before the meeting began President David read out a letter from Pam Richmond regarding ‘Trevor’s Fund’ having raised £2525 to fund wall art at the Nottingham Hospital.

Sean thanked the Club for its support and explained that he has been a volunteer since the end of March, when he retired from the Fire and Rescue Service for 30 years. He confirmed that LNAA get no government funding, so all the charity support they receive is much appreciated. They now provide 24/7 critical care, until 2am in the morning with Dr’s responding on average once per day.

They started in May 1994 and now have 5 helicopters, the original one a modified x-Police helicopter. The biggest differences in ‘trauma care’, where they like to ‘get them out’ of the accident environment within the platinum 10 minutes and the ‘golden hour’ to the hospital.  Open heart surgery (on one occasion talking to a London consultant by Facetime through the process) and full blood transfusions.  Originally when they ran out of money their service had to stop, so immense improvements.

Their impact in 2022 was:

464                       602                                      569                                                     146

RTC’s         missions in the dark      serious medical emergencies                     blood transfusions

His comment followed ‘trauma clinicians’ are exceptional people giving the professional delivery in fields, homes, inside cars and generally challenging environments. Which comes from his own experience as a Fire and Rescue officer, witnessing and sharing a number of events.  Their Ambi-copter is an Augusta 169 which can travel at 180 mph, 360 access, and giving an ability to get to a site within 20 minutes from their base at Waddington, covering the 3500 square miles. They have two BMW X5’s which carry the same equipment, to cover the darkness hours after 2am. IT costs about £4k per mission, meaning £8 million per annum. Sean fielded the number of questions admirably.

Mary gave the Vote of thanks, suggesting that Sean delivered an interesting and important subject without notes and his perspective as a former Fire and Rescue Officer with first-hand experience, enjoyed by the members who joined her in an enthusiastic round of applause.

President Davis then presented Sean with a cheque for £2360, their share of our Art and Craft Fair in July                               AR