Steve's story

On Saturday 22 January 2022, Steve from Stratton in Gloucestershire was riding to his best friend’s house on his new scooter. It was a road he knew well and as he rounded a bend, known locally as Devil’s Hill, a car was coming towards him on his side of the road.

Back at home, Steve’s partner Gail got a phone call ten minutes after he had left the house. She thought, “That will be Steve with a puncture again.” But it wasn’t Steve, it was a stranger’s voice. The stranger calmly told Gail that Steve had been in an accident but was alright and wanted her at the roadside. Gail thought, “He probably just wants picking up.”

Convinced there was nothing wrong, Gail was shocked to find a wall of ambulances and the road blocked when she got near to Steve’s location. An inner dread started to take hold and when a man who was diverting the traffic said, “You can’t park there!” Gail ignored him and walked towards the ambulances. He said, "Oh my God, you must be Gail.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m going to take you down to see Steve. You need to prepare yourself; he’s in a bit of a mess and you need to be strong. I’m going to take your hand and we’ll walk down the road and go and see him.” As they walked down the road to Steve, Gail could hear screaming. She remembers, “It wasn’t a high-pitched scream, it was a guttural noise, like you hear when someone is in immense pain.”

Steve’s memory of the accident

“I swerved and thought I’d missed the car, but then there was a bang and the world went brown as I went into the verge. My leg was hurting. I kept standing up and falling over. Someone appeared and suggested that I lie down.

When I was lying down, I could see my left foot but I couldn’t see my right foot. I thought, I’ve broken my leg. I recently turned 57 and it was the first time I had broken a bone. I also noticed that when I took my glove off, I had a lump in my hand; I realised a bone was trying to come out. It all went a bit weird after that. I asked the people that were there if they could take my phone out of my pocket and phone Gail, and my best friend to say I’d be late getting to him.

Then I very quickly became aware of the air ambulance coming in to land. I thought, oh dear this must be serious and I felt genuine intrigue as to what was going on.”

When Gail reached Steve, he was surrounded by lots of people, some in orange overalls. She managed to grab Steve’s hand; “Oh, hello Love,” he managed to say, “I’m going to have my leg amputated.”

Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC) provide critical care

GWAAC’s Dr Paddy and Specialist Paramedics in Critical Care (SPCCs) Christian and Fleur were flying back to the airbase after being stood down from another incident in Gloucestershire when they got diverted to Steve.

SPCC Christian recalls, “We got to the landing site within two minutes and were first on scene which is quite unusual. There were no flashing emergency blue lights to guide us to the site of the incident, so we used traffic queues to pinpoint the site. After landing in a nearby field, we scrambled through bushes and over a fence to reach him.”

SPCC Christian said, “Steve was clearly badly injured. We carried out an urgent full assessment and quickly ascertained that Steve had a compromised leg injury, meaning there was the possibility he could lose it.”

The GWAAC team gave Steve strong pain-relieving drugs and a sedative so they could re-align his leg. “We dressed it, put it in a splint and packaged him up ready for the helicopter. The nearest Major Trauma Centre was Southmead Hospital in Bristol and he needed to get there fast.”

Dr Paddy kept Gail informed of what was happening. He explained, “We need to airlift him quickly. He may need his leg amputating and he may have internal injuries.”  

Gail said, “Dr Paddy and the team were amazing. They were totally and utterly in control of the situation. I remember them being so calm and everyone else at the scene deferring to them. They were awesome! I thought then, it will be alright.”

Getting Steve from the road to the helicopter proved challenging. Firefighters created a chain to stretcher Steve across the field. It was getting dark and the terrain was tricky.

Once in the air the crew managed Steve’s pain and kept him stable. SPCC Christian said, “We don’t fly many conscious patients to hospital so we put a headset on Steve so we could talk to him. He was very chatty, full of beans in fact! We were happy that when we got him to hospital, he was stable but it was still likely he would need his leg amputating.”

It was dark by the time the crew landed at Southmead Hospital with Steve. SPCC Christian said, “We don’t usually fly at night but Captain Jim Green was able to land at Southmead because the hospital has a helipad which is a designated landing site.”

Touch and go

When Gail got to Southmead Hospital and explained who she was there for, the receptionist immediately took her around to the trauma centre. Gail said, “Just as she was leading me through some doors, Dr Paddy came out. “He was very good with me. He took me aside and gave me the lowdown. He said Steve was in the CT Scanner and he would ask a Trauma Consultant to come and see me. I remember thinking, if Dr Paddy is here, all is well. Then his radio went off and he apologised and said he had to get to his next job.”

The Trauma Consultant told Gail that Steve’s operation would likely be scheduled for the next morning. But five minutes later, the Consultant ran back in with another doctor; Steve had gone critical and they were taking him straight to surgery. “I had to sign consent forms. I said, if he’s critical I want to see him. They said, you’ll have to be quick.”

Gail recalls, “They were suddenly running Steve down the corridor on a stretcher to the operating room while I was holding his hand.”

The two-and-a-half-hour surgery turned into four-and-a half hours as doctors fought to keep Steve alive. Steve made it through the operation and spent the next 24 hours on ventilators in Intensive Care while Gail waited anxiously at home for updates and kept children, family and friends informed. Gail said, “It wasn’t sounding good. And then the updates stopped coming through.” When Gail got a call at 07:10 she was expecting the worst but after a pause on the line she heard, “Hello darling, you alright?” It was Steve.

“The accident made us realise we were always going to be together”

Gail said, “Something like this either breaks a relationship or forges it together.” Following seven years together, Steve and Gail decided to get married.

Steve was wheelchair bound for a year after the accident because it was a struggle to get his prosthetics to work, but he remained determined. He said, “I told Gail, ‘I’m going to walk with you up the aisle and there is no way I’m going to do it in a wheelchair.’”

Their background in Project Management came in handy as they planned their wedding while moving six times in four months during home adaptations for Steve.

They had a clear vision for their big day: “We wanted a celebration of being alive; a big party for our family and friends who meant so much to us.”  Steve said, “You could feel the love in the air. It was very emotional.”

During their celebratory day, Steve and Gail were keen to recognise the help they received from GWAAC. Gail said, “We didn’t want any wedding gifts but we did want to give back to the air ambulance.” They set up a donation basket and display at the event.

From patient to volunteer

The couple firmly believe that if Steve hadn’t swerved and GWAAC had not been there, Steve wouldn’t be here now. Steve says, “The speed of care and quality of care I got from GWAAC, saved my life.”

He also said, “As someone who has needed the charity, what’s been interesting is the follow-up support. Emotionally I’m OK about what happened, I have accepted it, although I admit I was a bit emotional when I visited the team at the airbase a year later and gave Dr Paddy a hug. It’s not just what the crew do at the scene, it’s how the charity cares about people in the follow-up. Everyone there is highly skilled but really nice.”

Gail said, “Our experience at the base proved this. Every single person we met was wonderful. We met SPCC Fleur; I couldn’t remember Fleur until I saw her. I said, ‘You saved my husband’s life!’ and gave her a hug; we were both in tears.”

As volunteers, the couple share their story to inspire support for GWAAC. Steve says, “It’s important to us that we help where we can, to raise money and encourage others to see the value in it because otherwise the next person like me won’t get the help that I did.”

As they make the most of life and plan future travels together, Gail and Steve remain committed to supporting GWAAC. Gail summed it up, “We will always want to support the most amazing charity in the world ever!!”