This month I’d like to share something that happened over the Christmas break, when another type of break rather changed our plans.
It was a Boxing Day walk with my family at Kit Hill, a popular place for walking in our area. I love Kit Hill. It is a huge granite outcrop that gives amazing views of Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, and the coast where the Tamar joins the sea. It is covered with the remnants of human activity from Prehistoric tombs to 19th Century mine workings. In short, it is a great place for a ramble on a clear day, with lots of interesting history and rare wildlife.
We had walked up an old incline which was once used to transport granite from the quarry to the old mineral railway at the base of the hill - a pretty steep walk. We stopped for a picnic lunch at the top, and were moving on to the quarry when I slipped on an innocuous looking slope. My leg found a rabbit hole, and the snap told us I wasn’t walking off the hill. There was no way of moving me so we called for an ambulance, but given the location they were unable to reach us and so the Cornwall Air Ambulance was deployed, and they transferred me to the nearest hospital.
This brings me to the main point of sharing my little drama. The care I received from the air ambulance crew was wonderful, and the calmness and humour helped not only me, but my family too. The really sobering thing though was that I do not know how I could have left that hill without them. My injury was relatively minor and not life-threatening (hospital later confirmed I had broken my leg), but the situation I was in made me incredibly vulnerable.
Cornwall is a county with many wild areas and rugged coastlines – it is the inaccessibility of these places that in part gives them their sense of romance and isolation, but that also makes accidents such as mine so challenging for the emergency services. What happens when you can’t be reached by road? Thankfully for me – and for 800 other people every year - we have the Cornwall Air Ambulance.
Prior to my accident I knew that they were a charity, but what I did not know was that they receive absolutely no government funding. It costs £3 million a year to keep the service airborne, and the Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust is also trying to raise funds at the moment for a new, faster helicopter. They have a target of £2.5 million to reach. Cornwall only has a small resident population, but it is boosted by millions of visitors every summer – imagine if everyone who crossed the Tamar gave a pound!
My accident shows how quickly a day can change, and how crucial this service is. It is too easy to take it for granted that someone will come to our rescue. You can read more about the Heli Appeal and the work of the Cornwall Air Ambulance here: cornwallairambulancetrust.org - please support them, especially if you live here or come to Cornwall as a visitor. My leg is mending and I’m beginning to get out and about again (carefully!) but every day other people will be having similar dramas and worse. I am so very grateful the air ambulance was there for me.
February 2019
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