Former
Mayor of Sandbach and MP Fiona Bruce join to support North West Air Ambulance
fundraising
The
former Mayor of Sandbach, Mike Benson, who together with his wife, Kathie,
volunteers for the North West Air Ambulance Fundraising team, joined forces
with the MP at the recent Sandbach U3A concert to raise funds for them.
Funds
were donated by those attended the 1st concert by the Sandbach U3A
at which Mike Benson spoke. His statement regarding the fundraising at the Wesley
Centre, Sandbach is below.
Fund-raising at the
Sandbach U3A Concert
When the North West Air Ambulance fund-raising team contacted
me to see if Kathie and I could help by providing a fund-raising table at a U3A
Concert, a quick check of the diaries and ‘yes’ was our response.
The Concert raised much-needed funds from ticket sales, a
raffle and from our modest merchandise table.
The Concert was very successful and a credit to Pat and Norman Satterthwait
and the Team.
As I explained to the audience shortly before the interval,
our involvement with NWAA was for a personal reason. I told of how one morning
in September 2012 I received a call from my son-in-law to tell us that our
daughter Jennifer had been involved in a motorcycle accident in Darwen,
Lancashire, and suffering serious injuries.
At the scene, the paramedic, Chris, made an important
decision. He diagnosed spinal injuries and called for the Air Ambulance.
Jennifer’s flight took four minutes and at The Royal Preston Hospital this was
confirmed. Jennifer’s vertabrae was broken in two places and she had broken her
shoulder, collar bone, pelvis, several ribs and both lungs had collapsed. I
still shudder when I think of that call and that we could have lost her or she
could have been crippled for life.
North West Air Ambulance now has three helicopters and it
costs 6 million pounds a year from voluntary contributions to operate them
across the North West, covering 5,500 square miles and 8 million people. It is worth remembering that the Air
Ambulance is in the Sandbach area regularly and that 30% of all missions are to
road traffic collisions. It could happen to any of us.
Jennifer’s journey probably cost about three thousand
pounds, but the gift of time of four minutes instead of a journey by road of
over 20 minutes undoubtedly was a life changer. Her recovery took over two
years but last year she completed a fund-raising trek to Everest Base Camp,
taking twelve days to reach 5357 metres.
At the time of the accident I was Deputy Town Mayor and it
was a given that I would nominate NWAA as my main charity when I was appointed
Mayor in 2013. Before and since then, we
have continued to support other voluntary organisations in Sandbach but we will
never forget our gratitude to the North West Air Ambulance Team for the
fantastic job they do.
Mike Benson
