A busy air ambulance charity whose call-outs were at an all-time high last year is inviting the public to play their £10,000 top prize raffle to help raise the funds needed to keep them operational.
The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) responded to more than 2,100 incidents across the North East, North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Scotland and the Isle of Man in 2023.
The charity provides advanced life-saving treatment via helicopter mainly in hours of daylight, while on a night-time, a highly skilled paramedic and doctor operate on a rapid response vehicle in the North East seven days a week and Cumbria most nights.
David Stockton, chief executive at GNAAS, said: “Our critical care team attends to the region’s most critically ill and injured patients. Our highly trained doctor and paramedic team can perform surgery, administer drugs and even provide blood products by the side of the road.
“This highly skilled, emergency medical care comes at a price; it costs £23,200 to run our service daily, and despite the amazing support from the general public, it is still likely that we will need to draw from our reserves to keep the service running.”
“This is the difficulty with being 100% reliant on public donation, but the upsides of this are that it allows our service to set its own criteria, assign finances to the equipment and expertise that matters the most to ensure our team are able to respond to any eventuality, and ultimately, save more lives.”
GNAAS has responded to more than 27,000 incidents since it became registered as a charity in 2002, and with the help of the public they hope to continue providing critical care to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
They have recently launched their annual raffle which has a top prize of £10,000, with some amazing runner-up prizes of an overnight stay in Middleton Lodge, or a three-night stay in Northumberland.
Last year their raffle raised over £112,000 and the top prize was won by Alan Pearson, from Shildon, who decided to share the prize money with his brother Tony and donate some of it back into the charity.
Recalling the phone call he received telling him he was a winner, he said: “I think everything just went blank, it still hasn’t registered. I was smiling straight away, it’s amazing, it’s just something that you don’t expect.
“It’s vital work that GNAAS does, it’s saving lives. So, I would tell any of the people, if they can afford to play the raffle, do it.”
Raffle tickets cost only £1 each, and the draw will occur early December, with the winner getting their prize in time for Christmas.
Tickets can be bought by visiting gna.as/raffle_2024 or calling 01325 487263.
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