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Hampshire And Isle Of Wight Air Ambulance Marks 15 years Of Saving Lives

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance is set to celebrate a momentous anniversary.

Since its first flight on July 1 2007, the doctors, paramedics, pilots and dispatch assistants who make up the charity’s Critical Care Team have been called out to over 15,000 emergencies across the region and beyond.

Fifteen years on from that first flight, the crews on board are tasked to around four emergency missions every day and are able to provide advanced life-saving care usually found in a hospital emergency department.

One of the longest-serving members of the team, Dr David Sutton, who has been flying with the charity from its outset, has praised the ‘amazing support’ from the public who have kept them flying and saving lives.

Throughout the years, Dr Sutton has witnessed and treated almost every injury and illness imaginable, from an armed robbery in Chandler’s Ford to performing open heart surgery in a patient’s house.

He said:

“The patient had been stabbed in the left side of his heart. My paramedic colleague, Mike, and I simultaneously opened the casualty's chest on the landing of the house, exposed the heart, emptied the sack around the heart full of blood and found a single hole in the left ventricle.

"I then blocked the hole whilst Mike transfused blood.”

Now that he’s hanging up his flight suit for good, Dr Sutton has thanked the generosity from the public who have allowed him and his colleagues to carry out their life-saving work, 365 days a year.

You can find out more about the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance by visiting www.hiowaa.org.

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