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Air ambulance appeal wants your old clothes

Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 07:00

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People across the city are being encouraged to donate old and unwanted clothes to help save lives.

Plastic sacks are being dropped off at thousands of Bristol homes and householders are being encouraged to fill them with old clothes, shoes and mobile phones that can be converted into cash to support the Great Western Air Ambulance (GWAA).

The helicopter service, which flies out of Filton Airport, sends specialist paramedics and emergency doctors to the most seriously-ill patients in the former Avon area and beyond.

GWAA relies on public support to provide its life-saving service and cannot fly without raising at least £3 million a year.

The charity behind the service has been working with European Textile Recycling since it launched its appeal last year. The scheme has now branched out into doorstep collections.

Chief executive of GWAA, Paul Weir, said: "Donations make a tremendous difference to us. They're absolutely vital in helping to keep the air ambulance flying.

"It really is a way people can help us without costing them anything in these hard economic times.

"Everyone has clothes and shoes they don't want and they can all be turned into money to keep the helicopter going and saving lives."

The recycling programme sends shoes and clothes to help people in Africa and Eastern Europe, but money also goes to the air ambulance.

The service flies 10 hours a day, seven days a week, and also operates by car the rest of the time, taking accident and emergency level care to the scene.

Simon Tracey from European Textile Recycling Ltd said: "We are putting about 50,000 bags out in a month.

"As well as helping councils meet their recycling targets and preventing items going to landfill, this is helping people in need and the air ambulance. It is a win, win situation all round."

He said that people can be sure they are donating to the charity because bags will be picked up in a van marked with details of the charity and people can call them to pick up any bags that have been missed.

 

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airambulancepics
The Evening Post has joined forces with the Great Western Air Ambulance to help them raise the more than one million they need each year to keep their helicopter flying.
The service flies a crew of doctors and specialist paramedics to emergencies to provide A&E standard care at the scene, helping save lives and minimise the possibility of more serious injury.
They can stabilise patients and help them breathe and in the most serious cases can anaesthetise people and carry out other emergency procedures while they are still in their home, on the roadside or sports pitch.
Patients are then transported to the most appropriate hospital for their injuries rather than the nearest because the initial preparation has already been carried out at the scene.
It also enables a casualty to be taken straight into the operating theatre, scanner or intensive treatment unit when they arrive at the A&E rather than waiting to be prepared.
Great Western Air Ambulance was launched in June and has already been called to more than 200 incidents and helped save lives but other than the salaries of the paramedics who fly as part of the crew, there is no NHS funding for the service and the team relies on its own dedicated charity and the goodwill of the public to raise the funding needed each year.
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