Dave’s Story

“The crew were very calming, they were brilliant”

Biker Dave Gibbs was out enjoying a ride in the sunshine last autumn when he was caught in a collision near Bodmin, leaving him with multiple injuries.

On 10^th October 2022, Dave was just outside of Lanivet and heading towards the A30 when a car pulled out of a junction in front of his motorbike.

“I did what I could to avoid it, I swerved to the left and tried to avoid it, but I couldn’t quite make it”, said Dave. “I clipped the back of it, went over the top and bounced down the road a bit. Then I was just lying there, trying to gather my thoughts as to where I was.”

The first person on scene was a paramedic, along with several other drivers, who raised the alarm and called 999.

Cornwall Air Ambulance was tasked, with critical care paramedics Thomas Hennessy Jones and Paul Maskell on board. On scene, the crew assessed the patient and his injuries. Dave was given pain relief before being stabilised and put onto a stretcher.

Dave had suffered multiple injuries, his right wrist and hand were broken, he had broken two ribs, his right ankle, two vertebrae were fractured, and the front of his pelvis was shattered. He needed to be airlifted to Derriford Hospital.

It was too far on foot to carry Dave, on the stretcher, back to the waiting AW169 helicopter. One of the passers-by who had stopped to help offered to convey the patient to the aircraft in the back of his estate car, along with the crew. It turns out the driver, Paul, had been offered a job at Cornwall Air Ambulance that very day as a Van Driver and Warehouse Operative!

In hospital Dave underwent several surgeries. He had a metal screw inserted into his pelvis and another in his ankle. His spine was left to heal naturally due to being immobilised in hospital, where he remained for eight weeks in total. Dave’s recovery has been a long process. He started to walk properly again from the end of January and will only get about 80% usage of his arm back.

Dave says he is very grateful to the Cornwall Air Ambulance paramedics who helped him that day, and he got to thank them in person on a visit to the charity’s HQ in Newquay.

He said: “The crew were very calming, they were brilliant. There was that level of professionalism and skill that they had which made the situation make sense to me.

“I know with Cornwall being so rural how difficult it is, it’s a really good service and should be well supported. I’m really glad they were the ones who turned up”.

Dave’s story features in the new series of Cornwall Air 999, which is on Quest every Friday at 9pm and is available as catch-up on discovery+.