Magpas and EEAST win Who Cares Wins award
Magpas Air Ambulance and the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) have been named as co-winner of the 999 Hero category of this year’s Who Cares Wins awards
The category aims to recognize ‘teams and individuals that have stepped up in a crisis’. The organizations were presented the award alongside the Sadler family – Linda, Paul and Tommy – recognizing their role in saving the life of 13-year-old Daisy Webb earlier this year.
The category’s other nominees were:
- London Ambulance Service’s Ukraine ambulance donation team, and
- RNLI lifeguards Tom McRitchie and Graham Fisher, Cornwall Air Ambulance and the South West Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT).
The awards ceremony, run by UK newspaper The Sun, were aired on national broadcaster Channel 4 on Sunday 27 November.
The award honored a life-saving emergency response
The family witnessed Webb suffer a cardiac arrest while walking to school in Huntingdon earlier this year, and immediately called for the emergency services.
Within three minutes, EEAST crew members Grace Lemin, Harrison Galgut and Charlie Harris had arrived, and began performing CPR on Webb, as well as employing a defibrillator.
Once they had restored Webb’s pulse, the EEAST team handed over to their colleagues from Magpas Air Ambulance, who had come to assist the incident. The Magpas team included Dr James Price, as well as Critical Care Paramedics Steve Chambers and Thomas Giddings. Webb was placed into an induced coma and transferred to Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge.
Daisy has since made a full recovery, and her family nominated her full team of lifesavers for the 999 Hero award. When talking of her heroes she said: “Words can't really describe how I feel, just gratitude and thanks to everybody who gave me the chance to live.”
“It is truly humbling to receive such recognition for the work we do every day, and we were honoured to share the evening with Linda, Paul, Tommy and the fantastic EEAST team who all did an amazing job to save Daisy’s life that morning,” said Magpas Air Ambulance’s Dr James Price, “We are most grateful to Daisy and her parents for the nomination, and enjoyed a great evening celebrating with the family and all the clinicians involved in Daisy’s case. It is remarkable, and so rewarding, to see how well Daisy and her family are getting on.”
Magpas Air Ambulance was given an ‘outstanding’ rating by the UK government’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) following an inspection in September.