This is a a post I’d never thought I’d have to write. But what I’ve learnt from my young life is that when something bad happens you have to try and find a way to do some good. And that’s exactly what happend to me and my family and I’d like to talk to you about Wiltshire air ambulance and why it means so much to us.
On the 23rd July 2021 my brother was walking home from work when tragically he had a very severe asthma attack and very very sadly he could not be saved. We knew the air ambulance had attended to help, we just didn’t know which one. Even though it was too late for Mike who never made it aboard that helicopter. Watching it fly away knowing he should have been on there broke my heart. But the gratitude I had towards those brave doctors I can’t even put into words how I feel about those guys, at the time we said our Thankyous and they went on their way.
Sometime later we as a family decided we needed to raise some money in Mikes. memory. But we had no idea who had attended, after some digging and contacting local authorities we found out that both Thames valley ambulance and Wiltshire air ambulance both attended. I was advised if I wanted to raise some money to do it for Wiltshire as the cost to them was much greater. Aswel as this I had a beautiful email from a very kind lady explaining what had happend that night, who the doctors were and basically saying if we needed anything they are there for us which really touched us. So I’d like to give a massive Thankyou to the team from Thames valley ambulance service Dr Chris and critical care paramedic Kurtis if you are reading this you are both hero’s.
So some time later we decided to start fundraising, initially we were inundated with donations in mikes memory which was absolutely fantastic but we decided we needed to raise as much as possible. I got put into contact with a lovely lady called Katy, who has stayed in contact with us throughout and helped us in anyway she can by sending out t shirts and anything we need to fundraise. Massive thanks to Katy for continuing to keep in contact and support us.
That December we got invited up to Wiltshire to a Christmas memorial service so off we went not really knowing what to expect and of corse we were an hour late and missed the whole thing! But we did get to stay around and have a chat to some lovely people from the charity, and would you believe it we found and got talking to paramedic Ben who attended and tried to help save Mike. I’m not going to lie I felt so emotional meeting Ben what an incredible human being doing all he did, I’m not to sure who else attended from Wiltshire that night but our gratitudes go out to everyone who tried to help. Not so long after we took part In a charity fun run in Swindon where we also bumped into Ben again. Here we are just before the fun run kicked off.
Since then we’ve held countless quiz nights, Christmas sales, Easter cake sales sold waffles and even had an 80s disco!! Mum and her sister walked a marathon and we’ve made thousands just on raffles alone. A brave friend of mine has done a sky dive and I’ve had family members do charity runs. It really is very overwhelming and our total currently stands at £11,465!
Here are just a few pictures of what we’ve been up to…
Before I leave you I’d like to tell you some really important stuff about the Wiltshire air ambulance. They get no funding what so ever from the goverment, it costs on average £11,000 a day to keep the ambulance in the sky! Which equates to about 4 million pounds a year!! I almost fell off my chair when I heard that for the first time! So you can see how important all our fundraising is and just how important the air ambulance service is. Mikes memory lives on in our fundraising and I personally will continue to raise money for this charity till the day I die.
And to Wiltshire air ambulnace Thankyou for all you continue to do 💚💛
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