3 minute read
Noel’s story
Latest news
Three awards in one night!
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We were thrilled to receive three awards in one evening in September. We were crowned Kent Charity of the Year and Winner of Large Charity category at Kent Charity Awards 2021, and our CEO David Welch won the Charity Times Charity Leader of the Year Award 2021.
The Kent Charity Awards recognise organisations and individuals across the county which make the lives of others better. We were selected as a winner in recognition of providing worldclass pre-hospital life-saving emergency medical care 24/7, even throughout the pandemic, despite the challenges faced over the last year. The Charity Leader of the Year Award 2021 is a prestigious national award which celebrates excellence amongst charities and not for profit organisations from across the UK and honours the outstanding professionals in charity management. With David at the helm, we have delivered outstanding results as a world-leading, Air Ambulance charity at the forefront of Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS).
Read more on our website: aakss.org.uk/latest-news
Latest news
We are Outstanding! Honours for Team KSS
In March 2020 we became the first HEMS to be rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission in all five of its inspection key lines of enquiry; safe, effective, caring, responsive and wellled. We were praised for our engagement with partners such as local NHS trusts and the Ministry of Defence and our commitment to the local community. We are all incredibly proud of this fantastic achievement, and want to say a huge thank you to all of our wonderful supporters. Leigh Curtis, our Executive Director of Service Delivery, received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021 for services to the Air Ambulance Service particularly during COVID-19. Leigh has pioneered many innovations, helping us to reach many more critically ill patients and significantly contributing to improved outcomes.
Mark Wilson, one of our Emeritus Doctors, received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020 for his work on GoodSAM — an app he co-founded that enables those calling emergency services to instantly share their location and live video.
Noel’s story
It was a regular Tuesday morning in September 2019, when Noel kissed his wife, Emily, and their five-yearold son, Murray, before heading off to work as usual. In his own words, Noel describes how on that morning, his life changed forever.
I was on my motorbike, passing a junction in Tonbridge with my right of way, when a car drove straight into me — the biggest shunt you could ever imagine. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground and couldn’t feel my legs. I quickly realised that my injuries were severe and that I was fighting for my life. I was very lucky that the first two people on the scene were experienced healthcare professionals. One was a physiotherapist, who held my head and spoke to me to keep me conscious. The other was an offduty anaesthetist who called the emergency services. I don’t remember much — other than thinking that I may not survive and asking the physiotherapist to tell my wife and son how much I loved them. I do, however, remember hearing the KSS helicopter arrive and then, that was it. My next memory was three and a half weeks later, waking up in the Intensive Care Unit at the King’s College Hospital Major Trauma Centre. I was subsequently told that I would not be alive today if it wasn’t for the specialist skills of the KSS team. As well as broken limbs, I had punctured lungs, very low blood pressure and no pulse. The HEMS crew kept me alive for the 10 minutes it took to get to King’s by helicopter and it is highly unlikely
