Roadside blood transfusion saved hit-and-run victim
BBC/Jim ScottThe victim of a hit-and-run crash said he would have died of his injuries if an air ambulance team had not given him a blood transfusion.
Corey Russell, 20, was walking home in Spennymoor, County Durham, after a night out when he was struck by a vehicle in September 2023.
A Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) doctor carried out a blood transfusion at the scene, something not routinely offered by road ambulance teams.
Russell said he was raising awareness of the charity-run service, ahead of a dozen landmarks across the North East and Cumbria lighting up green every night until Sunday to honour charity-run air ambulance services.
The landmarks include Penshaw Monument, Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Redcar Beacon and Auckland Castle and Tower, Barrow-in-Furness Town Hall, Carlisle Civic Centre and the Whitehaven Beacon.
GNAASRussell suffered spinal fractures, a shattered shoulder blade, a broken left arm, pelvis and hip as well as injuries to his kidney and colon.
The incident happened at night, when the helicopter cannot fly, which meant the GNAAS team travelled by road with blood and a doctor onboard.
"The next thing I knew I woke up in hospital only to be told I'd been run over by a car - I didn't know anything after that," he said.
After receiving treatment, he was transported to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary where he underwent nine hours of surgery and remained for a month.
"Some days I ache, some days are fine, but you just have to keep powering through," he said.
"How much this service means to people's lives, especially like me, on that day if it wasn't for GNAAS I would have been dead, and I wouldn't be here right now."
BBC/Jim ScottEmergency medical consultant Phil Dowson said "many people" do not realise the service does not receive government funding and is entirely charity-funded.
"When you think of the care we can provide as an ambulance service nowhere else in the region provides that.
"Blood transfusions in trauma or medical emergencies... very high end emergency operations, only things we can provide and yet we don't receive any funding really."
GNAAS said, on average, it costs the service about £5,000 per call out, and raising awareness was vital to its survival.
Corey Russell's father, Chad Russell, said GNAAS teams were "unsung heroes" and he did not know how the service worked before his son was injured.
"You don't understand what it is they do until you need them, God forbid you need them but if they were not here, where would we be."
