HELLO,

My name is Margarette Worden. I'm the Chief Executive of the First Air Ambulance Service Trust. The Cornwall Air Ambulance is a cause very dear to my heart and has been for the whole of the time it has been in existence.

It was in the spring of 1987 that the idea of a helicopter ambulance was brought to fruition in Cornwall. At that time it was the very first to operate in the U.K. The plan was that it should be paid for by commercial sponsorship from members of the business community.

Unfortunately, no such sponsorship was forthcoming and it appeared that the days of Cornwall's pioneering helicopter ambulance would be numbered even before it had properly got started. The Health Authority, who had underwritten the project in the short-term, found themselves faced with a massive budget over-spend and were unable to commit any more funds to sustain it. Only the 11th hour intervention of a Midlands based sportswear company offered the Air Ambulance the chance of a reprieve until the end of 1987.

I had seen the helicopter in action earlier in the year when it had picked up a neighbour who had suffered a severe asthma attack. I realised how vital such a service could be in a county like Cornwall which is served by only two hospitals with accidents and emergency facilities. These are positioned some sixty miles apart, at Plymouth and Truro, far distant from many of our more remote and isolated rural communities. These distances are compounded during the summer months when many of Cornwall's narrow and winding roads become clogged with holiday traffic, bringing parts of the county to a virtual standstill.

The journey to either of these hospitals by road can, at certain times, take upwards of two hours. By air ambulance, not having to contend with traffic jams and the like, this time may be reduced to less than twenty minutes from even the furthest extremes of the county. For some patients suffering the effects of sudden serious illness or traumatic injuries as the result of an accident, this saving can represent the difference between life and death.

In October 1987, on the very same day that "official" funding for the air ambulance ran out, I held a coffee morning in our local village hall to raise money to help keep it flying a little longer. People came from far and wide to lend their support and in just two hours over £1,000 was made to be deposited into the newly opened "Save the Air Ambulance" fund.