A motorcyclist and his family have reunited with the doctor who gave him a blood transfusion on the roadside following a collision near Settle.
Dale Campling, 32, from Bradford, was riding his bike on the B6480, between Giggleswick and the Settle, when he was involved in a collision with a car on 20 August 2023.
Dale cannot recall what happened, but he said the actions of a passerby ultimately led to his survival.
He said: “There was a gentleman who was going to the Lake District for the day and he was passing by. He came to the scene and saw I was losing a lot of blood out of my neck and called for an ambulance. He took his jumper off and held it against my neck to stop the bleeding.”
Dale’s mother Helen Campling, added: “The officer from Yorkshire Police and paramedics have said that if he hadn’t done that, the outcome could have been a lot different, and he did an absolutely brilliant job.”
Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) and Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA) arrived on scene, but due to the severity of Dale’s injuries they requested assistance from the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) as they had a doctor on shift.
The critical care team from GNAAS spent an hour on scene, working alongside YAA and YAS, and gave Dale a life-saving blood transfusion, as well as putting him in a medically induced coma.
He was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary where he underwent further treatment and woke up from his coma two and a half weeks later.
He said: “I’d had multiple surgeries and when I woke up in ICU there were tubes everywhere, and I was thinking, what is going on?
“For me I was only just finding out what had happened, while everyone else I knew I had been dealing with the aftermath for two and a half weeks.
“Visibly I only had a broken arm and neck lacerations, but I had a lot of internal injuries. I was on a breathing tube which was changed to a tracheostomy, I had a lacerated inferior vena cava, which is a large vein in the abdomen, lacerated liver, shattered spleen and a lacerated kidney, and I’m still under various departments for medical tests and operations.”
Helen said: “He’s got a lot of fatigue and can’t go back to work yet, but from where he was to where he is now is just amazing. Everybody involved in his care from start to finish has been great.”
More than a year since Dale’s incident, he visited GNAAS’ base with his family and was reunited with the doctor who treated him on scene and accompanied him to hospital.
He said: “Meeting Philip was great. I really appreciated the time he spent talking and answering questions about my accident, showing us the helicopter and all the equipment on board. I can’t thank Dr Philip, paramedic Ian and pilot JJ enough, and thank you to everyone at GNAAS for all the amazing work they do.”
Philip added: “It was fantastic to meet Dale and see how he’s doing. It’s rare that I get to see my patients again after they’ve been taken to hospital, so it was lovely to meet him under better circumstances and see the positive impact we’ve had on his life.”
Share
