Cornwall Air Ambulance: more than 1000 missions last year
A Mum explains how she will be ‘forever grateful’ for Cornwall Air Ambulance teams after her five year old was airlifted to hospital following a road traffic collision last year.
Jai was involved in a road traffic collision in Porthleven in August. He suffered a head injury and broken arm after accidentally being knocked off his scooter.
He was treated at the scene by the Cornwall Air Ambulance crew before being airlifted to hospital for onward care and has since made a good recovery.
‘I will be forever grateful, because when you’re in that scary situation all you want is someone who knows what they’re doing and can help,’ says Jai’s Mum, Kizzy.
‘I’ll be forever grateful for the charity, until you need it you don’t realise what an amazing thing it is to have.’
Jai’s airlift to hospital was just one of 1,064 missions undertaken by Cornwall Air Ambulance in 2024. That’s according to the yearly figures released this week by the charity.
It says that 445 of the incidents were trauma-related, 327 were to help people who had suffered medical emergencies and 274 were in response to cardiac arrests. The crew also carried out 18 inter-hospital transfers.
Second helicopter: incredibly close to fundraising target
The month with the highest number of taskings was May, which saw 117 emergency calls come in. Throughout the year, the critical care team also delivered 19 blood transfusions to patients at the scene of an incident.
‘2024 was another busy year for your charity, both in terms of mission numbers and the Heli2 Appeal,’ explains Tim Bunting, Chief Executive at Cornwall Air Ambulance
‘I want to thank every single person who has supported the appeal so far, we are getting incredibly close to reaching that £2.85million target to bring your second lifesaving helicopter to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. But we cannot do it without you, and we need your help with the final push.’
‘Together we can boost the resilience, capability and availability of our service, meaning we’ll be able to attend more missions by air and ultimately save even more lives across the county.’
‘It’s an extremely exciting time for us as we anticipate the arrival of your second helicopter.’