Why we fly
Abbi’s Story
On Sunday 26th May 2013 we received a call to say a little girl had been seriously injured – six minutes later we were in the helicopter and en-route to the scene.
Nine year old Abbi had been happily riding her pony Billy at a local show, when suddenly he reared up, lost his balance, and fell backwards onto her. He rolled over Abbi, crushing her and in his panic to get up trampled on her leg – shattering her femur.
When we arrived, Abbi was in indescribable pain. Straight away, we gave her gas and air and then put a cannula into her hand to administer morphine. We wanted her to be as comfortable as possible so that we could realign and splint her leg. She was carefully put in a neck brace, placed on a stretcher and carried to our waiting helicopter which flew her securely to University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire.
Although Abbi needed surgery to pin and plate her leg, she was back in the saddle less than a year later.
“I’ll never forget Abbi saying to me – ‘I’m dying Mum, I’m dying.’ I kept asking her questions to find out exactly what hurt, but she couldn’t answer because the pain was too much. It was horrendous. If I could have changed places with her, I would have done. Minutes passed and in the distance I could hear a helicopter approaching and I just knew it was for us. I felt such a sense of physical relief that help had arrived.”
– Karen, Abbi’s mum