Hampshire air ambulance attends busiest month with 150 incidents
October proved a challenging time for the life saving service
Last updated 9th Nov 2021
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance have had their busiest month of the year so far with the service called out to the Salisbury train crash on Sunday night.
The emergency service was also called the fatal incident on Salisbury Plain involving a soldier, who was crushed by a tank.
October saw 146 emergency missions across the region, which lead to a total of 1301 call-out so far this year, which is an average of four missions per day.
Each mission they attend costs an average £2,882.
Most frequent call-outs included cardiac related incidents at 42, 21 medical incidents such as strokes, and 15 road traffic incidents.
Among those incidents was also a major gas explosion in Portsmouth on Friday 22nd October.
The charity say they are prepared if their number of call outs continue to rise.
Keith Wilson from the charity says the charity are prepare is their number of call outs continue to rise but the crew has found themselves under immense pressure.
“They have been sent to some particularly challenging jobs in this last month by the nature of our work we are sent to the most difficult and challenging medical emergencies across our region.
“But even our crew would say this month has been particularly taxing but they’ve held up and done a brilliant job and we have been there for our supporters and those people across the county and Isle of Wight as well.
“South Central Ambulance Service and South Western Ambulance are both at absolute maximum levels of their ability to take their response to calls and it’s organisations like that that feed in to our calls as an air ambulance service.
“So we would ask that the public are really, really mindful of the pressures that the dispatch teams and desks are under and only 999 in an emergency but if it is an emergency do call 999.”