Thames Valley Air Ambulance is asking the public to support its Christmas Appeal, to keep the charity at the frontline of saving lives.

Thames Valley Air Ambulance has launched it’s 2019 Christmas Appeal to help raise the vital funds it urgently needs to continue providing advanced medical care to the communities in the Thames Valley and beyond.

The charity is hoping to raise £60,000 which could pay for 17 emergency missions, the same number it was dispatched to last year on Christmas Day and Boxing Day combined.

Unfortunately, the Harvey family know all too well how valuable Thames Valley Air Ambulance’s service is.

In November last year, the unthinkable happened to Karen and Chris Harvey when their fit and healthy 22-year-old son Scott’s heart stopped at the gym.

With Scott, who was a student at Oxford Brookes University, in a life-threatening condition, Thames Valley Air Ambulance’s crew were dispatched.

Only seven to eight percent of patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest live to be discharged from hospital. With the odds against Scott, he needed advanced medical care to be in with a fighting chance of survival.

He desperately needed the hospital- level care Thames Valley Air Ambulance’s highly trained crew provide.

Paramedic Jo Meadham, paramedic James Perks and doctor Simon Brown were dispatched in minutes and arrived by helicopter to be at Scott’s side. Remembering Scott’s incident, paramedic Jo said: “Whilst flying to Scott, we knew he was really poorly. We rarely attend patients whose hearts have stopped who are Scott’s age. Thankfully, the staff at the gym gave him brilliant first aid by using a defibrillator which restarted his heart. This meant that we could immediately begin the treatment Scott so desperately needed.”

At the time Scott’s heart stopped, his parents were more than five hours drive away completely unsuspecting of their son’s critical condition.

Reflecting on Scott’s traumatic incident his father Chris said: “There is no way I can explain the depth of despair my wife and I felt receiving the call that our fit, healthy, sporty, kind and caring son was critically ill, 320 miles away having suffered a cardiac arrest.”

The emergency medical provider is asking the public to donate to help keep more families, like the Harveys, together for many more Christmases to come.

To find out more or to support the Thames Valley Air Ambulance’s Christmas Appeal please visit www.tvairambulance.org.uk.