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Four years on, Oadby mum reflects on difference local air ambulance made to her son’s recovery after crash

On the fourth anniversary (26 August ) of her son being airlifted to hospital by the local air ambulance, Oadby mother June Morrison will reflect on how family life has changed.

“With the current pandemic and living in lockdown for so long this has been a strange year for us all, but the anniversary is a chance to really focus on improvements and changes. Four years ago when we were faced with a son fighting for his life we would have given anything for life as it has been recently. However, time is a great healer; allowing acceptance of what has happened and focusing on moving on,” she says.

June will be forever grateful that Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance attended her son Lawrence Brimm (19 at the time) when he sustained serious head injuries when his car crashed after he swerved to avoid hitting an animal in the road on the way back from a night out in Leicester.

“Getting him to the nearest major trauma hospital as quickly as possible made a huge difference to and very positive impact on his recovery,” she says.

After the accident, Lawrence lay undiscovered for a few hours before a lady walking her dog called the emergency services.

It took the local air ambulance just 10 minutes to transfer him from the scene of the accident – near Leicester racecourse – to University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire where he was kept in a coma in the intensive care department for three weeks.

Having suffered serious brain injuries in the collision, Lawrence then started on the long road to recovery; spending nearly a year in the Central England Rehabilitation Unit at Leamington Spa followed by another 15 months at a rehabilitation care home.

Since November 2018 he has been living back at his home in Oadby with the help of a team of support workers during the week.

As part of his ongoing recovery, Lawrence spends an hour a week as a volunteer at his local air ambulance shop. He is a popular member of the team whose role is to sort donated CDs and DVDs before they are sold.

“I want to give something back to the charity that saved my life. The doctors said that if I hadn’t got to the hospital as fast as I did I wouldn’t be walking and talking now, and might not be alive,” he says.

He is very focused on his recovery which includes hydrotherapy, counselling, yoga, pottery and golf lessons. This was challenging during lockdown when activities had to stop but, says Lawrence, “ it gave me more family time which, in a way, has made up for the time I lost when I was in hospital.”

Your local air ambulance needs continued support as it launches its brand new lifesaving helicopters early next year! To support the lifesaving work they do, please click here