PROVING its worth, the Holsworthy night flights landing area for the Devon Air Ambulance has been used seven times since its installation.

The Devon Air Ambulance Trust’s (DAAT) community night landing site — situated at the Holsworthy Football Club, making use of the pre-existing floodlighting — became operational in October/November 2016.

Since it went live, the site has seen the air ambulance land on a number of occasions and has helped many local people who were in need of urgent medical support.

Holsworthy Football Club and Holsworthy Town Council were able, with donations from the Balsdon Trust and the Holsworthy Hospital League of Friends, to aid DAAT in the setting up of the floodlit community landing site. It has enabled DAAT to continue providing its life-saving service in Holsworthy later into the night — with hopes of extending past midnight in the future.

DAAT community helipads development officer, Toby Russell, visited the football club on March 29, to thank those involved with the project and meet a couple who had first hand experience with the air ambulance.

He said: “I want to express our thanks to everyone here today for your involvement with this project. I remember we stood here around October/November time last year to say thank you for coming together to produce the funding for the night landing site. Now, we have proven that that thanks really was deserved as several people have benefitted from the landing site.

“It isn’t a good thing people have needed to use it but it is a great thing it was here for those who did. The air ambulance has turned out to the community helipad site seven times so far. Six of those were for HEMS calls; four were for trauma and the other two were for medical conditions.

“It is the busiest site and the footprint of its benefits stretches far beyond what we could have hoped for this site.

“It can be annoying when the lights are on late at night for those living close by but I think many understand that it is for a good cause. We landed at 11.30pm the other week and I’m sure people were clock watching but like I say this has and is making a difference. We hope to go further into the night, with earlier mornings to allow us to help even more people and we hope people will support us in this because illness can strike anyone, at any time.”

Toby added that it was ‘great to be able to meet people who have used the service’ because due to patient confidentiality, ‘we don’t know who we airlift and it is nice to know what happened to the patients we take to hospital’.

Stan and Kim Stretton recently had first hand experience with the new community landing site when Mr Stretton experienced a heart attack and was taken to Derriford Hospital via the air ambulance. They were greeted by Toby and thanked everyone for their support in getting the vital service up and running, Mr Stretton said ‘if it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t be here’.

Mr and Mrs Stretton moved to Highfield Homes, Holsworthy around four years ago and were settling in to Holsworthy life.

On March 14, Mr Stretton said he felt like he had indigestion. But over a short period of time, the pain intensified. The emergency services were called. By this time Mr Stretton was in considerable pain, which seemed to be radiating around his chest.

Mrs Stretton told the Post she had difficulty in contacting the emergency services, she said ‘in those situations you do panic’.

“Luckily the builders working on Highfields Homes, were close by so I went outside and asked for their help. We want to say thank you to them for helping us on that day and for continuing to help since Stan came out of hospital — they have been great, they’ve done our garden, laid foundations and will be building our shed soon, all the little things Stan isn’t able to do whilst in recovery.

“I came out and asked for their help and they got straight to work, running up the hill to call 999. Within minutes the lads [first responders] from the local fire station turned up and then an ambulance.”

On arrival, paramedics took the decision to call the air ambulance as Mr Stretton’s health was deteriorating.

Mrs Stretton added: “Everything went in slow motion for me even though it all happened so quickly — before I knew it the air ambulance was hovering over head.”

Mr Stretton said: “If it hadn’t been for the lads from Highfield homes getting the ball rolling who knows what could have happened — they are a fantastic bunch of lads and I am very grateful to them.

“Also thanks to the Holsworthy Fire Station team who helped out too, we went over there the other week during their training to say thanks — they said that at the time they thought it was touch and go whether I’d make it and were very pleased to see I was on the mend and that they had been able to help get me to the hospital so quickly, massive thanks to them!”

Mr Stretton added it could have happened to any one at any time — he had been laying carpet the day before and had travelled up to Bracknell and back the day before that, everything had been normal until he suddenly found himself in the back of the air ambulance on his way to hospital.

Within 90 minutes of the first telephone call Mr Stretton had been airlifted to Derriford Hospital, where he had emergency surgery. He received immediate treatment from a cardiologist, and had two stents fitted via his wrist.

Derriford Hospital staff told Mr Stretton that he was a very lucky man and without the intervention of the Devon Air Ambulance service there could have been a considerably different outcome.

He agreed and said he is thankful to be back home with his wife, taking each day of his recovery slowly.

He expressed his gratitude to the South West Ambulance Team, Devon and Cornwall Fire and Rescue and the Devon Air Ambulance pilot and crew for the ‘first-class service and quick response’.

He said he has two main fears, needles and flying, and on that day he conquered both.

The community landing site was made possible by donations from The Balsdon Trust and the Holsworthy Hospital League of Friends.

Lia Painter from The Balsdon Trust said: “The trustees felt that the benefit to the entire community would be so large that they voted unanimously in favour of supporting it. The Balsdon Trust aim to benefit as many people as possible with each grant and this fitted the bill perfectly, I believe we supported it with a 50% grant.”

Ms Painter added: “On a personal level, I live quite near the football pitch and have heard the helicopter on many occasions, both day and night. I am always pleased to hear it as it means someone is getting the help they need. We are so far from an emergency unit to get there by land ambulance it is often not a viable option.”

Stephen Lee, chairman of Holsworthy Football Club, spoke about how pleased the football club was to be able to facilitate the air ambulance service, he said: “If you look around the pitch you can see a number of boards with company logos on who support the club, so we want to be able to make sure we can provide support for the town in return and this is one way we can do that.”

Mayor Jon Hutchings thanked everyone for their support and said that ‘funding for the site going forward would be reviewed after its first operational year because it is definitely something the town needs’.

“The site has definitely proven it’s important for Holsworthy. Because of our situation geographically I think it is so important for us to have the ability to allow the air ambulance to land in the town.

“Due to Holsworthy’s rurality and where we are in Devon we are limited to the access to ambulance services — not least because there aren’t enough land ambulances around to cover our area. For example I had someone in the pub [White Hart] a while ago who also had a heart attack, it took over an hour for an ambulance to get to us, that isn’t okay!

“There is obviously a need for the air ambulance landing site later into the evening and that is evident from the amount of times it has been used in the first months of operations.”