Pauline's Story

On Tuesday 14th April 2009 I was driving along the A130 with my daughter and foster child. The day had started just like any other. Unfortunately for us, the day changed dramatically when my Ford Focus hit the central reservation and turned over. I suffered head, lung and arm injuries and was treated at the scene before being flown by the Essex Air Ambulance to Queens Hospital in Romford which was the best hospital to deal with my injuries. I have since been told my flight to Queens took just 7 minutes! My children were both taken to Basildon hospital with slight injuries.

The A130 was closed both ways for almost 90 minutes whilst I was cut free from my vehicle by the Fire Service and attended to by paramedics and staff from the East of England Ambulance Service. Essex Air Ambulance attended with Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) Doctor Ben O’Brien and HEMS Paramedic Richard Mackie. Serious head and chest injuries were suspected and consequently a procedure called Rapid Sequence Induction (RSI) was performed.

Doctor Ben O’Brien said “Optimising oxygenation and controlling C02 in head injured patients dramatically improves their outcome. We performed an RSI, giving Pauline an emergency anaesthetic so that we could optimise all the parameters. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence to show that secondary transfers to specialist centres is detrimental to the outcome in trauma patients. Therefore, we elected to fly Pauline to Queen’s Hospital which was the one best equipped to deal with her injuries.”

I would like to thank the HEMS team for everything they did that day. Their expert skills and care got me safely to hospital. I know that they were just doing their job but I will never be able to thank them and land crews enough for what they did. Without them I would not be here today!