Jay’s Story

An airlifted patient who suffered a life-changing head injury in a crash in north Cornwall has been creating art for a Cornwall Air Ambulance charity shop.

Jay Champion, from Wadebridge, was heading towards Camelford on his motorbike back in 2008 when he collided with a car doing a three-point turn on a blind bend.

He was thrown off his bike and landed 20 metres down the road, suffering multiple serious injuries.

Emergency services were called to the scene along with Cornwall Air Ambulance. The crew were able to treat Jay at the roadside then airlift him to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, the region’s major trauma centre, for onward care.

Jay had suffered a severe head injury, a broken pelvis, a broken leg, an arm injury and his ribs had punctured his lungs.

He was put into an induced coma and underwent surgery. He was in hospital for five months in total, at Derriford, Treliske, and St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle.

“The brain surgeon at Derriford said I’m the one percent, he said we wouldn’t be talking now or standing if it wasn’t for the air ambulance”, said Jay. “He said the air ambulance gave me the one percent chance of survival. And they thought I might be paralysed.”

Jay went through physio and had to learn to walk again. Although he can’t ride his motorbike anymore, he still has his love for art and drawing.

15 years on, he now draws pictures for the Cornwall Air Ambulance charity shop in Wadebridge, which are put out for donations.

He said: “Before I’d never given it much thought, but since the incident, everything is the Cornwall Air Ambulance for me, I’m so grateful. I see it flying over in Wadebridge and I always wave.”