With the winter drawing in, the weather getting worse and the conditions more treacherous, now is the time for us bikers to pay attention and take more care on the roads than ever. We all know what it's like, freezing cold, icy and wet roads, visors misting up and the people in their cars with the heaters on, listening to music, talking on their mobile phones, not paying attention to what’s going around them, then ‘BANG’. That’s another one of us down. With all of this in mind, and wondering about our safety in general, LB’s Foxy went to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel to meet and chat with the London Air Ambulance crew and the HEMS charity, to find out more about how to better protect ourselves on the road and to find out more about their fund raising.
On my arrival at the hospital I was greeted by Christine Margetts, who is the Fundraising Manager for the (HEMS) Helicopter Emergency Medical Service. Christine proudly showed me the LAA shop with all of their merchandise in. The shop is situated in the hospitals main entrance, where I was also introduced to the staff, who all volunteer their time each week, to keep the shop open for the much needed funds that the Air Ambulance needs to operate 365 days a year. I was then taken via lift to the roof of the hospital, where the heli-pad and office is for the pilots and crew. The panoramic views from the roof were quite breath taking, and these guys are lucky enough to see this every day.
Once inside, Christine introduced me to Andrew Cameron, who is the Director of the HEMS charity, Darren Clark, who’s one of the fire fighters stationed there at the helicopter pad and also Dr. Mark Wilson, a Registrar neurosurgeon who goes out on the Air Ambulance when it's called out. We sat and discussed fundraising, the service they provide and I asked them about how we as bikers can protect ourselves better on the roads.
How long have you been working for the HEMS Charity?Christine: “I have been working for the charity for seven years, I first started as Gareth Davis’s secretary one day a week, he is the clinical doctor in charge of HEMS. There used to be another lady who did the fund raising and she became quite ill, so I then took over the charity side of things and now I work full time raising funds.”
Andrew: “I was involved at the very beginning in 1986, when my company actually provided the service with its first helicopter. I was managing director of the Express newspapers in those days. We supplied the first helicopter and paid for it fully for three years, and then we were major donors for the next five years, altogether we put in about eight million pounds. After that the sponsorship from the Express ceased, I went away from the service for about seven years. Then about two years ago they asked me to come back as a Trustee then earlier on this year, I was asked if I would like to be Director of the charity.”
How do you go about raising funds?Christine: “We have some corporate companies on board, but it is very hard in London to get corporate funding. Most of our money these days is what we call ‘bread and butter’, this is where we are shaking buckets at underground stations, in the city, at nightclubs, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose supermarkets, over ground stations and shopping malls.”
Andrew: “People often believe it’s all about corporate donors, we do have some, the NHS is our largest one, and they give us £873,000, a year. Virgin, who is an investor, gives us another £250,000 and then we have to raise about £500,000 on top of that, because the cost of the service is around 1.55 million pounds a year to run.”
What Challenges do you face raising these funds?Christine: “The biggest challenge for us is trying to get a corporate on board, because it is very hard to get into these places. You can’t shake the buckets forever because people get fed up with seeing you. So getting one big corporate to back us, would give us vast, important money which would enable us to keep the service going and improve it, which is what we’re trying to do.”
Is there a funny story you have to tell us about a charity venture?Andrew: “I can tell you a funny story about the helicopter. In the early days, there was this guy, who had been knocked down, not too badly hurt on Battersea Bridge. This policeman was there waving the helicopter in and doing his bit. But, unfortunately when the helicopter came down, it blew the policeman’s motorbike over onto the patient. So it wasn’t his lucky day was it?”
When an emergency is called in, for what reasons would the Air Ambulance be called out and not a normal ambulance?Christine: “We are automatically tasked out from the London ambulance head quarters, so we go out to shootings and stabbings, which there are quite a lot of these days, one unders (people that jump under trains), falls from heights of three storeys or above, drownings and major road traffic accidents. What happens is, we have a paramedic who sits at the ambulance head quarters in Waterloo, he listens to every single call that comes in to Waterloo that day (I think they get about 3,000 calls a day, which is the busiest call centre in the world). We have five paramedics here at any one time; one of them covers what they call ‘Red Base’, which is a desk especially for the HEMS. They listen to the calls coming in and they distinguish whether we should go out. They then press a certain bell, which is just for the HEMS team and it rings a telephone in the office here on the heli-pad, everyone here knows that a job has just come in. All the crew will then appear. The two pilots, one of them will start the engine up while the other pilot prints off the all the information to find out where they’re going, with a grid reference. Then the doctor and the paramedic get onboard, and they depart. They usually try and get airborne in two to three minutes and can get anywhere in the M25 within 12-15 minutes.”
What challenges does the Air Ambulance face when it goes out on a call?Mark: “Well the Air Ambulance obviously has to fulfil a number of roles as we’re an addition to the London Ambulance Service. We can offer additional interventions, Skills and equipment which can offer more benefits for our patients. For example, we don’t necessarily have to get the patient to the nearest hospital, we can take them to the nearest appropriate unit which specialises in that particular trauma. The challenges we face are that we have to get to the job rapidly, provide a good clinical service whilst maintaining the safety of the scene itself, working in conjunction with all of the other services on the scene to get that patient to the nearest unit as quickly as possible. We bring A&E to the patient, sometimes people get stuck in their cars and it might take a while for the fire brigade to cut them out, we can often start the treatment and can be looking after the basics which is airway, breathing and circulation, whilst they are still in the car.”
How do the LAA and the Rapid Response units work together?Andrew: “Well, the rapid response cars work at night and only until one in the morning, they also work only five days a week, because we don’t have the money. They are crewed by a senior doctor and paramedic, if the weather is very bad or its dark hours i.e. in winter between the hours of five in the afternoon and one in the morning, the rapid response cars take over because it is too dangerous to fly a helicopter in a very dense, urban area. Also if there is an accident close to the hospital, it is easier and quicker to send the cars. Both the cars and the helicopter carry a mobile accident and emergency unit as well as having the right qualified people on board to deal with every incident.”
Mark: “We work very much together actually; a lot of the paramedics that are on the rapid response crew have been on the HEMS paramedics and vice versa. Also we share the same desk at central ambulance control with the motorbike rapid response paramedics. There also is a lot of cross over between the HEMS and the motorbike paramedics. The bikers can certainly get to some jobs quicker in the centre of town than we can and they can start the initial care of the patient. We can then come along and then add on extra, we never replace them, we are there to help with different skills and equipment. We all work very much together as a team.”
What percentage of bikers is helped by the LAA and the Rapid Response teams?Andrew: “An awful lot are helped. If you take a combination of cycle and motorbike accidents, I would think you would be looking at over 150 accidents a year, that’s three a week.”
Mark: “I wouldn’t know the percentage, but motorbike riders are a common patient of ours. We see many motor bike accidents, some are the fault of the biker and, some are the fault of the car driver.”
What do you think the most common injuries for bikers are, and what can we do to protect ourselves?Andrew: “Oh, de-gloving, (that’s where you lose your skin from arms, legs or torso). Fortunately there are a lot less head injuries than there used to be, I cannot advise bikers more about not skimping on the money they spend on their helmet, they must buy a good quality helmet. My son, he was riding his bike and he’s a very experienced rider. He hit water and aquaplaned, he wasn’t going too fast. I got the call from the hospital, saying he was all battered, bruised and he was all having his leathers cut off, which really upset him. When we looked at his helmet, it was split straight through where his head hit the edge of the pavement. But thanks to a good, expensive helmet, his head was completely unhurt. I also think because of the effect on plastic with sunlight and UV light, any biker who really values his life should change his helmet every two years. Another thing, because you bikers are so venerable, it is so important that you wear good quality protective gear. Broken limbs are also very common, they can be very severe. There’s another story of a biker that came off and he was fine, but the bike came down the road after him, span round and the handle bars smashed his pelvis. I can’t advise enough about wearing the right leathers, the right helmet, the right gloves and boots because, between you and the road, that is all you’ve got.”
Darren: “I believe the most common injuries for bikers would be leg, pelvic and head injuries. As for safety, I personally don’t know much about that, but I think that its not always the bikers fault; it’s the people driving the cars.”
Mark: “In my experience? Death,” he laughed. “That’s the truth, gosh that’s a bit harsh, don’t write that. Well, a lot of bikers do get killed because they are not protected at all. Other injuries include limb fractures, especially lower limbs. Pelvic injuries are very common in bikers, because of the way they sit on the bike, to head, neck and spinal injuries.”
From your perspective, how do you think bikers can help themselves out on the road?Mark: “Erm... by getting in a car, only joking. The best thing they can do is first, be aware, be really aware in terms of reading the road and everything that is in front of you, and by trying to predict what’s going to happen. There are always things that are out of control and you can’t avoid. You’re not protected at all; the only way to do it is by increasing your protective gear, don’t ride bikes obviously if your tired or under the influence. With bikers it’s very difficult because sometimes it’s their fault, more often than not it isn’t, and it’s often completely unpreventable.”
By having this service on our door-steps, we should all feel extremely lucky. As bikers we’re all quite venerable out on the roads at the best of times, and from the services that the London Air Ambulance provide, we all stand a much better chance of being treated properly in case of a serious accident. So next time you see someone shaking a bucket or LAA charity box, give generously. It could be for you, or one of your freinds.
Related Linkswww.hems-london.org.uk
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