When my accident happened I was putting roofing felt on my son's treehouse
It had rained earlier in the day and the tree was slippery. One minute I was up on the roof,
next minute I knew I was flying through the air thinking this is gonna hurt
The day my dad had his accident I was at college and I got the call probably about
halfway through my lunch break for my mum that I needed to get on the next
train I couldn't get to her as soon as possible so by the time I got to my mum
I had calmed down quite a lot which is when I'd found out that my dad had in fact
gone to hospital and mum was .. I never want to see her like that again
I remember waking up in a pool of blood looking up and thinking how lucky I was to be alive
I was in a lot of pain but being the kind of person I am a stubborn male
I thought I'm gonna get up, go and have a shower, wash away the blood and the
aches and pains and then carry on with the job I was doing
I was in school and my deputy head came down and told me that I was going home with my best
friend at the time. At that moment I became stressed and spent the whole rest
of the school day not really concentrating as I was wondering what
was happening. As soon as I was out of school and able to go on my phone I
messaged my dad because I believed that he was the one who was least likely to
have hurt himself. This is when I found out that he had broken his back
It was only after getting up off the patio and walking into the downstairs bathroom
where I was gonna have a shower I realised that I probably hurt myself
more seriously than I thought at which point I lay on the floor in a lot of
pain and luckily for me I had my mobile phone in my pocket and was able to dial
nine nine nine because I was home on my own. It was terrifying to know that my dad had
It was terrifying to know that my dad had been airlifted because having to go in an air ambulance just makes everything
seem so more real than the land ambulance because it's not something you
see all the time so it just made all of the possibilities for what could be
wrong with him so much more severe and Iwas terrified that we were going to lose him
They were very good immediately said to me check I was okay was okay as a
be anyway and calm me down and so by this point I was actually quite stressed
out not starting to realize I had really bad here myself
I've never really heard of the air ambulance before that event I've seen it
going overhead and I knew it was important but it never really been
important to me I was once ago helicopter but not quite
that way I remember initially on the flight feeling quite ill and immediately
again the paramedics were in the back dealing with me and before I knew it we
were landing on the ground in Plymouth at the time my hair was long and I
wasn't cutting it because I didn't enjoy having my hair cut but I decided that it
was probably the best thing I could do so I grew out and had it chopped off for
the air ambulance the injuries I sustained were actually discovered after
a cat-scan because I told the ambulance crew when
they arrived that I was fine I hadn't broken my neck on my back actually and
I'm not having a full body head scan they discovered I'd actually broken 533
ribs and I had a nasty head wound as well as a family we play in the
Torrington silver band and as a part of Karen's hair cutting fundraise they
agreed to host a concert where all the proceeds rather than going to them as
usual would go towards the air ambulance so as a family I think it was really
nice to know that we had that support through our close group of friends my
plan is to run a 10k next year on or around the anniversary of my accident to
raise money for the ambulance it's scary whenever the air ambulance
goes overhead because you never know where it's going but also from the
experience my dad had with them I know that whoever they're going to is going
to get the best care possible and they're likely to make a better recovery
than if the air ambulance didn't exist I'd say that if you want to do a
fundraiser for the air ambulance just do it they're grateful for any help that
they can get and it really is just such a worthwhile cause to donate money for
it really does take a community to keep our air ambulances flying