Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance: Hospital standard care in the skies

Amputations on the roadside, open heart surgery in a field, a blood transfusion in the air - this is the everyday life of an air ambulance crew.

The following is what I saw when I spent three days with Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance (DSAA) in September - onboard the helicopter and at the roadside as they went about their work.

The pilot is landing the helicopter in Poole Park, Dorset - it is a street away from where a moped rider has been involved in a collision.

"The patient is in a lot of pain, so the road crew [land ambulance] has asked us to come along," Mario Carretta, the charity's chief pilot, explained.

The 25-year-old woman is in too much pain to be moved.

On board the helicopter there is a critical care practitioner and a critical care doctor so the team can respond to the most serious medical events.

They were able to give the woman pain relief, which would usually be administered in hospital, so they could realign the rider's broken femur.

Six weeks later I caught up with Alice Merry, who was out of hospital and recuperating at home. She now has a metal rod in her thigh.

"My hand and wrist also had several broken bones and were repaired with metal plates and pins," she said.

"I am wearing just a small splint now and movement in my fingers and wrist is improving.

"I am still on pain medication and have a physiotherapist visit me at home weekly."

Ms Merry told me she was extremely grateful for the care she received from the air ambulance team.

"No one knows if I will recover 100%, but without them, I know it could have been so much worse."

On another day a patient and her family visited the charity's base at Henstridge Airfield in Somerset to say thank you.

When Betty was six years old a freak accident left her fighting for her life.

"I remember playing with the ball on the trampoline, and it rolled off, and then… I don't know."

Her mother Sarah was able to fill in the blanks of what happened in July 2019.

Betty had fallen through a garage roof at the end of their garden in Yeovil while searching for a lost ball.

She landed on concrete 12ft (3.6m) below, causing a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain.

Sarah said she feels eternally indebted to the air ambulance, which was called to the scene by paramedics after they realised the extent of Betty's injuries.

"If they hadn't got us to Bristol Children's Hospital so quickly… it would have been a very different story."

After 17 days in hospital Betty was able to go home.

Last year Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance was involved in more than 2,400 missions and it said demand was continuing to rise.

It is deployed on its missions by a dedicated Helicopter Emergency Medical Services desk in the South Western Ambulance Service control centre in Exeter.

All five of the air ambulance charities in the greater South West (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, Great Western, and Wiltshire) pay for the desk and all five can also be deployed to missions anywhere within the region if required.

Dr James Keegan, a consultant in acute medicine at Poole Hospital and a critical care doctor with the DSAA, said: "Taking a patient directly to the place they need for the definitive care they need; is one of the huge aspects of what we do, and one of the biggest things that makes a difference to our patients."

He described the mix of care given via the air ambulance team as being similar to a critical care unit but provided "closer to the point of injury or illness".

Charles Hackett, CEO of the service, said: "You have to have a helicopter to get this team to the right place at the right time with the right kit and the next stage is to get that patient, not to a hospital, but to the right hospital... that might be in Bristol, that might be in Southampton, that might be down in Plymouth."

The charity service, which is in 23rd year, is looking to expand to provide 24-hour cover.

Mr Hackett said the hours the charity was not able to cover currently kept him awake at night.

"Although in the hours between 2am and 7am, there's less patient need, we do know there is patient need," he said.

"And when you hear about those individual cases… that really hurts. There are patients that expect us to be there, and we're not.

"We need a second helicopter, to make sure we get to every patient."

The air ambulance is not funded by the NHS. It is a charity that relies on donations.

"We are part of the NHS by ethos, we work as an integrated part of that organisation," Mr Hackett said.

"But it's a level of care the NHS currently doesn't provide - to bring the hospital to the roadside."

Mr Hackett said the service was 95% funded mostly by small donations and gifts.

"But if we don't get that support, this will get cut back."

When Betty, now 11, and her family visited the base, they found out more about what had happened to her and saw up close the helicopter they had travelled in and the stretcher on which Betty had been treated while her mum had held her hand.

The two of them exchanged glances as the enormity of their experience became apparent.

"It doesn't bear thinking about what could have happened without them. They are all so amazing," Sarah added.

Follow BBC South on Facebook, external, X, external, or Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.