HampshireHeli and Isle of Wight Airmed Ambulance Magazine spring56 2016 Now Flying by Night as well as by Day! Read our interview with Doctor Simon Hughes: Page 19 Uplifting stories from our inspirational patients 4 360˚ IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE 10 looking into the future. /WELCOME Contents Welcome Welcome from Alex Lochrane 1 News / Reader’s photos & letters 2/3 to the Spring edition Uplifting Stories 4/7 of Helimed 56 Brian Hygate / Nick Mills Fundraising 8 Leave a Legacy Challenges and Events 9 Feature – Immersive view 10/11 Feature – Beaulieu Launch 12/13 Volunteering 14/15 Welcome to the Spring issue of Helimed 56. This is an Young Volunteers / Boomtown important issue of the magazine as it serves as a reminder of how far we have come as a charity in the eight years since Community & Corporate 17 we began operations in July 2007. The photograph on our front cover speaks volumes; we are now able to undertake Night Flying 18 emergency missions during the hours of darkness, as well as 10 Facts about Night HEMS daylight, reaching sick and injured people when they need us most. Crucially, we are now able to land on a motorway Meet the Crew 19 after dark, which in the winter months can mean any time Dr Simon Hughes from 4pm onwards, at the height of rush hour traffic. Today your Air Ambulance also carries blood on board, and there Fundraising 20 is a Doctor on board 97% of the missions that we undertake. Flight For Life Lottery This means quite literally that we are able to bring the accident and emergency department to the patient and Feature - Children’s page 21 perform life saving treatment at the roadside. Drawings and games for our young supporters Inside this issue you can read the inspiring stories of some of those who we have been able to help, including Brian Hygate who is still seriously fanatical about cycling, despite the accident that left him with a smashed hip, a overwhelmingly positive feedback from staff and pupils. If broken pelvis and three crushed vertebrae. Nick Mills also you think that your local school would be interested in a visit describes the day that we transferred him from St Mary’s from HIOWAA, please get in touch with our Schools and Night Hospital on the Isle of Wight to Odstock Hospital so that he Youth Co-ordinator Joanna Hennessey at joanna@hiowaa. could undergo the operation needed to save his fingers after org. As part of a vibrant and progressive Air Ambulance a horrible accident at work. community, we know we can never rest on our laurels if we At HIOWAA we always strive to be the best at what are to further develop the service that we provide. People we do; both as a provider of Helicopter Emergency in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight trust us to be there Medical Services (HEMS) critical care and as charitable when they need us most and we work continuously to prove organisation. So when the opportunity arose to create a worthy of this trust and to preserve the strength of our unique fundraising tool that would bring an Air Ambulance Flying Hampshire and Isle of Wight reputation. None of this would be possible, however, without mission to life in a classroom or a summer fete, we were Air Ambulance you and your support. On behalf of everyone at HIOWAA, intrigued. Read more about HIOWAA’s foray into the 360° 4 Kings Park Road, thank you for all you do for your Air Ambulance and I hope Immersive Experience on page 14-15 of this issue, and Southampton,SO15 2AS that you will continue to support us so that together we can about the day we set out to film a mission in 360° vision. t: 023 8033 3377 continue to deliver our life-saving service. e: [email protected] Our fundraisers will be out in the community with our 360° www.hiowaa.org headsets this summer; if you do come across them, I hope you will have the time to try the 360° experience. Registered Charity Number: 1106234 Alex Lochrane Launched Company Number: 5244460 As your Air Ambulance, we take particularly seriously our responsibility to promote safety, education and emergency Chief Executive Editor: Caroline Tyree awareness within our region. From its standing start in Design, Production Management & October last year, I’m delighted to report that we have Cover Photography: now reached over 16,000 children through our ‘Be a 999 3 Men & a Suit – www.3men.co.uk Hero’ Schools and Youth campaign, and have received b 1 NEWS Helimed The latest stories from our Crew and Fundraising Team O to save a life! Your We are always pleased to receive your letters Kerry Dowling (Blood Transfusion Section Manager) and Dr and photographs of our helicopter on day to day missions. Your photographs show the Air Elizabeth Shewry (Consultant Anaesthetist), University Hospital Ambulance in areas that land vehicles might not Southampton, trace the journey of blood from donor to patient. be able to get to, such as remote rural areas. Thank you to those who are featured below. Upgrading the facilities at our Thruxton Airbase. Angela Proost O Negative and Box O negative unit The blood journey begins with a gift at this decision. The team check the blood the local National Health Service Blood and using the blood tracking device and then Transport (NHSBT) donation suite. Only 7% of connect it to the patient via the warmer. the UK population are blood group O Negative, Patients are very closely monitored during termed the universal donor, which can safely this process and their injuries treated be given to any patient in an emergency to during the journey to hospital. Patients save a life. The donor’s gift is rigorously tested with serious injuries who require blood and manufactured into the final product at an will generally be taken to UHS, the Major NHSBT blood establishment and then acquired Trauma centre for Hampshire and the Isle by hospitals such as University Hospital of Wight. Southampton (UHS). Specially qualified Emma Bailey Biomedical Scientists carefully store, allocate The hospital and prepare the blood for patients, including When the patient arrives at hospital, HIOWAA patients. The blood is packed into the trauma team are already waiting for special temperature controlled boxes, used them in the Emergency Department; often With the launch of night HEMS (Helicopter location for the base, the current facilities do by the military, to allow storage on board the patient will need to receive further Helimed 56 for 48 hours. SERV Wessex blood. The HIOWAA team hand over Emergency Medical Services) earlier this not provide the right environment for extended is a wonderful charity that then provides to the trauma team, letting them know year, and as the service provided by the Air shifts (the Air Ambulance now operates from free transport for the NHS in Hampshire, that the patient has been given blood allowing UHS to use the money that is saved at the scene of the accident. Whilst the Graham Stokell Ambulance evolves, it is vitally important that 7am until 2am) and lack the training facilities on healthcare. SERV Wessex bikers deliver HIOWAA team has been working hard the charity’s Airbase in Thruxton meets the to support the crew in the delivery of enhanced the blood to HIOWAA’s Thruxton airbase at the scene, our HIOWAA paramedic on and return unused boxes to avoid wasted the HEMS desk, who dispatches the Air changing needs of the crew. clinical care. donations. Ambulance, will have been in contact The crew currently occupy a set of old with the blood transfusion service. It At the HIOWAA airbase. takes 20- 30 minutes to get each new box Portakabins at the Thruxton Aerodrome, Debbie Anstis from Wagg Consultants tells The blood is stored in a secure room of bloods ready, so once the team have with space in a shared hangar to house the us about the charity’s plans to upgrade the at our airbase, as it is a valuable asset. Each safely handed over a patient, they need to morning the HIOWAA team place the blood, in be ready for any further patients who may helicopter. Whilst Thruxton is an excellent facilities for our crew at our Thruxton Airbase. its storage box, onto the helicopter. Alongside need help. They return the empty box to the blood is a blood tracking device so that the lab, pick up a new box with two fresh we can trace the blood to each patient, a units of blood and are ready to go. The charity took the decision to remodel the current base to ensure We explored several options for the extension of the existing facility special infusion set to connect the blood to that the crew had facilities that would work now, and in the future, to but were delighted when the landlord of Thruxton Aerodrome, Henry the patient, and a miniature warming machine Afterwards support its operational activities. To achieve this, Wagg Consultants were Pelham, offered the charity the opportunity to lease a brand new hangar that warms the blood as we give it to the Because HIOWAA and UHS work so appointed to manage the Thruxton Base Enhancement, having managed for the Air Ambulance crew and helicopter. This completely blank canvas patient; it gets pretty cold out there! closely together to provide our life-saving a similar project for Thames Valley Air Ambulance last year, as well as the would give us the opportunity to design a base for the crew from scratch, service, we are able to follow up with all extension to the Cornwall Air Ambulance base, which was completed in include all the additional facilities needed, and for the first time, give the The patient patients that receive blood.