#004 Yorkshire Air Ambulance with Helen Callear

Welcome to the Inside Yorkshire Podcast. A podcast full of stories and tales from the people of Yorkshire. In this episode, your host Susan Baty-Symes interviews Helen Callear from the Yorkshire air Ambulance service. Helen tells us all about the challenges this fantastic charity face, by providing emergency rescue services throughout Yorkshire.

Susan and Helen discuss the humble beginnings of the 18-year-old Yorkshire air ambulance service and the amazing role the service provides to the people of Yorkshire, knowing help is only 20 minutes away!

Discover how in the 5 years Helen has been with the service they have moved from a single helicopter to two fully kitted out and operational H145 helicopters servicing the whole of Yorkshire from two separate locations. Learn more about the cutting-edge technology and insider stories about this wonderful service.

Finally find out more how this amazing service is funded by the very people it aims to help, and how incredible volunteers work to help keep people safe.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Helen talks about how many call outs they average per day

"We do about 3 per day, but it really depends. Over the 2014 Tour de Yorkshire we went out 42 times over three days. This year we were the chosen charity for the Tour de Yorkshire and were out there with our fundraising team across the whole route"

We need £12,000 a day to keep the operation running, that’s about 4.4million a year to run the service. The medical fit-out for each helicopter is £500,000 and the helicopter alone costs £6 million.

We cover 5.4 million people throughout Yorkshire all with the two H145 helicopters that can reach speeds of 160mph, fly night missions and fly into major trauma centres.

We work very closely with other air ambulance charities and the criteria are always patient need, so we help each other out cross-county, 40% of what we do is road traffic collisions.

BEST MOMENTS

“There is a window of opportunity to whisk those at risk away and into major trauma centres in about 10 minutes.”
“One fundraiser has helped raise over £50,000... Just think about how many lives that has saved.”
“Incredibly reliant upon volunteers...they are the ones late at night putting in the work.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

https://www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk/

https://www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk/donate/

info@yaa.org.uk

ABOUT THE HOST

Susan has been living in Yorkshire for over 30 years.She is passionate about the county she has adopted as her home and she never ceases to be amazed at the wealth of talent ‘Inside Yorkshire’ and the tales that people tell.

CONTACT METHOD

www.insideyorkshire.co.uk

susan@insideyorkshire.co.uk

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