'Air ambulance charity saved my life'

A collision with a speeding car driving on the wrong side of the road was a life-changing event for marathon runner Lisa Challinor.

Rushed to hospital by the Midlands Air Ambulance (MMA), she is now one of several patients sharing her story in a photographic exhibition to mark the charity's 35th anniversary.

Images dating from the organisation's first mission in 1991 to the advanced, pre-hospital critical care service it provides today are on show from 10 to 12 April in Birmingham's Chamberlain Square.

Challinor, from Shropshire, required a partial leg amputation, but since her accident in 2024 has gone on to raise thousands for the charity. "They saved my life. There's no other way to put it," she said.

She was out on a 19-mile (30.5km) training run in Shropshire when she was abruptly thrown through a wall by the collision, which unfortunately killed her Labrador, Dottie.

She was airlifted to hospital by the air ambulance with serious injuries and significant blood loss and had six hours of emergency surgery.

"I knew it was serious as soon as the air crew arrived," Challinor said.

"They were brilliant. They worked with the land team to stabilise me, then sedated me so I could be flown to Royal Stoke Hospital."

She spent time in intensive care and was visited by one of the charity's critical care paramedics days afterwards, before embarking on rehabilitation and learning to walk again.

Operating across the West Midlands, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire,the MMA is entirely reliant on donations to provide its critical care.

The charity said it had "grown into one of the UK's busiest and most established air ambulance operators" since its first mission in May 1991, completing 80,000 missions by September last year.

Patients are treated by advanced emergency doctors and critical care paramedics, using life-support equipment to give hospital-level care at the scene.

Motorcyclist Steve Withington, from Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, received vital care from the charity when, out on a group ride, a car ahead suddenly performed a U-turn directly into his path.

"I was thrown into a telegraph pole. The next thing I remember is looking up and seeing a woman standing over me," he said.

He was airlifted to a nearby hospital with multiple fractures, including to his wrist, arm and legs, and suspected internal injuries.

He underwent a 14-hour operation and was later treated for liver damage and two pulmonary embolisms, spending five weeks in hospital.

He still has limited mobility and participates in weekly hydrotherapy sessions as part of his recovery.

"I have a new perspective now," he said. "Every time I see a helicopter, I think about the patients on-board and what they might be going through."

The exhibition, called Mission Critical, will include "thought provoking" stories from some of the charity's tens of thousands of former patients, plus crews, supporters and fundraisers.

MMA chief operating officer Emma Gray said the charity was incredibly grateful to supporters and former patients who had shared their experiences and to crews "whose professionalism underpins every mission".

"This exhibition not only celebrates the evolution of our pre-hospital emergency service since 1991, but also highlights the increasing demand and complexity of the missions we attend," she added.

"Our service is needed now more than ever."

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