The Real Heroes – GWAAC

Who is GWAAC?

It stands for Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (See their website HERE). They are a team of specialist crew of medical professionals who work 365 days a year, attending emergencies, on average of 5 times every day.

They cover Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, North East Somerset and North Somerset. However many of the calls they receive are outside of this area, with 108 calls being outside that area so far this year.

2019 is set to be their busiest year to date. The first half of the year saw the number of incidents attended reach 971, with 6 more months to go.

66% of missions were attended by car

33% of missions were attended by helicopter

What do they do?

“GWAAC” attend some of the very worst situations. From roadside blood transfusions, amputations to treating cardiac arrests and administering general anesthetics. They even carry a range of specialist equipment, so that they can treat patients of any age or size, whether that’s an adult or a child.

33% of incidents are cardiac arrests

18% are road traffic collisions

26% other medical emergencies such as collapse or fitting

23% other trauma emergencies such as falls, burns or drowning.

How can I help?

Great Western Air Ambulance Charity is exactly that, a charity. They rely solely on fundraising and donations.

To put it into perspective:

£30 is the cost of one pre-filled syringe with essential stabilising drugs

£175 pays for boots to keep the crew warm & dry

£9,000 pays for a ventilator to keep patients breathing.

Which brings me onto their new campaign…

#ChristmasMission

A message from Great Western Air Ambulance Charity:

The festive season is a time for gathering with our friends, family and loved ones to celebrate and feast together. As the nights draw in and the sparkly lights are turned on, thoughts turn to the office parties, family gatherings and mince pies. For many, it’s the chance to take a well-earned break and to get excited about the year ahead. It’s their favourite time of year.

Yet over the Christmas period, it’s a sad fact that many people across our region will be involved in a medical emergency or traumatic incident that leaves them fighting for their lives. When a life-changing incident happens, it’s mot just the person who is affected, but their family and friends too.

This Christmas the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity Critical Care Team will be working every single day across providing potentially life-saving treatment where it’s most needed to children and adults across our region. We attend over 5 incidents each day on average, and some days it’s many more. Our specialist crew bring the expertise of an emergency department directly to the person where and when they need it most.

This is a vital service, yet many people don’t realise that we’re funded entirely from charitable donations. It’s a hard job, which takes a special kind of person, but we couldn’t do what we do without you.

This festive season we’ll be working hard to keep families together for many more Christmases to come. But we need your help to ensure our crew of specialist doctors and paramedics can go where they’re needed most.

Each one of our missions costs at least £1,750 and could potentially save a life. This means we need to raise £8,750 every single day to keep our service flying.

This Christmas, we’re calling on you to help us fund as many of our Christmas Missions as we can. In doing so, you’ll be helping to save local lives.

Please help fund a #ChristmasMission

For more information and to donate visit www.gwaac.com/christmas-mission or visit @GWAAC on Twitter/Instagram and @GreatWesternAirAmbulanceCharity on Facebook where you will also find real life stories of those they have helped. Make sure you check out the hashtag #ChristmasMission to find out how the fundraising is going.

*Disclaimer – Having been a fan of aviation for many years, I have previously learnt about some of the amazing work that air ambulance charities do and so I was honoured when I was asked by GWAAC to help spread the word about their #ChristmasMission. I have not been sponsored in any way to write this post but I would like to give special thanks to the GWAAC for providing the photos that appear in this post.