Charles’ Story

The crew of Cornwall Air Ambulance are regularly tasked to incidents where someone has been injured in a fall from height. Last year the crew attended 156 missions of this nature.

In 2017, Charles was one of those patients. He fell 12ft from his loft, hitting a work surface on his way down, sustaining multiple serious injuries.

Cornwall Air Ambulance was tasked to the scene. The helicopter made the 14 minute journey from base in Newquay to help Charles in Liskeard.

The charity’s critical care paramedics discovered Charles has several fractured ribs, a punctured lung and internal bleeding. He needed to get to a hospital quickly for further treatment. They administered strong pain relief to Charles before he was airlifted to Derriford Hospital.

Charles said: “I have no recollection of the helicopter ride due to the ketamine I was given. But I think the speed the helicopter got me to Derriford had a great impact on my recovery. It is by far the most important medical resource that we have in our rural area.”

Charles had titanium plates inserted to repair the damage to his ribs. He spent two weeks in hospital and 10 weeks off work. It was a further 18 months before Charles was fully recovered from the incident.