Why we fly
Katie’s Story
“If I hadn’t been flown in the air ambulance it maybe that I wouldn’t have made it. I could have lost my leg or my life,”
Former dental nurse, now university student, Katie Pease had to be cut out of her car after it was involved in a head on collision with a truck on an icy road at Ashfordby Hill near Melton Mowbray.
The impact pushed the engine back into her legs and she sustained multiple injuries including two broken femurs, a smashed left knee and foot, six broken ribs, a lacerated spleen, a collapsed lung and a broken right collar bone.
Within six minutes of a 999 call being made, Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance (DLRAA) took off from its base at East Midlands Airport and 14 minutes later arrived at the scene of the accident.
Katie was given a cocktail of pain relief drugs and sedated to make her more comfortable, she was also given antibiotics to prevent infection of the open wound on her left knee – interventions that paramedics on a land ambulance are unable to do.
The air ambulance doctor and critical care paramedics applied splints to her legs which would have helped curb the amount of blood she was losing.
Getting Katie to the nearest major trauma hospital as quickly as possible was crucial and it took the helicopter just 10 minutes to fly her to Nottingham for a quick transfer by land ambulance to the Queen’s Medical Centre. The same journey by road – without any hold ups – would take half an hour.
“If I hadn’t been flown in the air ambulance it maybe that I wouldn’t have made it. I could have lost my leg or my life,” she says.
Katie had to be given multiple units of blood before she could be operated on and she spent two and a half weeks in hospital before being allowed home.
“I was told that I wouldn’t be able to walk more than 100 yards and would never be able to do a job other than a desk job. The worst case scenario was that I might have to come to terms with being a wheelchair user,” she explains.
But Katie was determined to make the best recovery she could and seven weeks after the accident was able to stand up using crutches. Nine months after the accident – which happened in November 2016 – she was walking and able to return to work.
“I will always be grateful and thankful for all of the help I had getting me to hospital quickly and the treatment which resulted in my leg being saved,” she says
Amazingly after everything she has been through Katie (26) – from Woodhouse Eaves – is planning to do a tandem sky dive in April with her friend Chelsea Longstaff (27) from Loughborough to raise funds for and awareness of DLRAA
Despite suffering with arthritis and being in constant pain – which has meant she has had to reduce her working hours – Katie wants to do the challenge because she thinks “the air ambulance doesn’t get enough recognition”.
The two young women will be leaping out of an aeroplane at Langer Skydiving Centre in Nottingham on April 3rd.
They have a JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Katie-Pease for anybody wanting to sponsor them.