Great North Air Ambulance Service

A WOMAN is tackling her first marathon next year to raise money for the air ambulance services that helped her family after they were seriously injured in a head-on collision.

Lisa McCrickard, 41, from Egremont, is taking part in the Manchester Marathon on Sunday 14 April and hoping to raise £4,000 for the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) and North West Air Ambulance (NWAA).

The two air ambulance charities came to the aid of Lisa’s husband, Ian McCrickard, 51, and their sons Jack, 14, and Harry, 11, after they were involved in a road traffic collision on the A5086 near Deanscales in October 2018.

Describing what happened that day, Mr McCrickard said: “Another car came round the corner on the wrong side of the road and head on into us. It was that fast, I couldn’t react.”

The father-of-four was trapped in the car for an hour and 45 minutes, and his son Jack also needed to be released from the wreckage.

While Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service had started to cut the father and son out of the car, both aircraft from GNAAS had flown to the scene and requested assistance from NWAA.

GNAAS doctor John Ferris said: “On scene we were able to provide advanced pain relief to Ian and his children, who had a number of serious fractures and some internal bleeding. By giving them some strong medication, this allowed us to remove them from the car they were in and prepare them for the flight before we took everybody to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.”

Harry had sustained a broken shoulder, a fractured pelvis and a bleed to his spleen, while his brother Jack had two broken wrists, a bruised lung, snapped his femur, and suffered damage to his teeth.

Their father, Mr McCrickard, had broken both of his legs, his left knee, a big toe, a finger on his left hand, and sustained lacerations to his hand and arm.

The brothers left hospital after three weeks and returned home to recover, while their dad was discharged a week after them.

Since the incident, the McCrickard family have reunited with one of GNAAS’ critical care teams who helped them and have raised thousands of pounds for the charity.

Earlier this year, Jack climbed Scafell Pike with his friends and family to support GNAAS, and now his mother has decided to run the Manchester Marathon in 2024 to raise even more money for the air ambulance service.

She said: “I decided to do Manchester because a lot of people have said it’s a good course to run. I’ve never done a full marathon before, but I’ve done a few half marathons, including Liverpool, Carlisle and the Great North Run.

“It’s so important to keep supporting the air ambulance because still to this day I can't believe they are charity funded. You never know when you might need them.”

To support Mrs McCrickard, visit her JustGiving page here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/lisa-mccrickard

GNAAS does not receive government funding and therefore needs to raise £8.5m a year to remain operational. The charity has launched a raffle with a top prize of £10,000 to help it meet rising demand of its services. Tickets costs £1 each and are available now at gna.as/raffle_2023

About GNAAS

• The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) is a charitably funded air ambulance service which provides life-saving care throughout the North East, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and the Isle of Man.
  
• They operate two helicopters 365 days a year and also operate a night-time service in the North East and Cumbria on rapid response vehicles.
  
  
• The aircraft cover an area of more than 8,000 square miles and on board are specialist doctors and paramedics who effectively bring the hospital to the patient.
  
  
• The level of skill and expertise of the on-board team mean they respond to the most critically ill and injured people, giving them the best chance of survival.
  
  
• GNAAS is a progressive organisation which has pioneered pre-hospital care in the region.
  
• The latest techniques, equipment and drugs are constantly being evaluated to ensure the charity can provide the best care possible for their patients.
  
  
• 2022 marked the service providing 20 years of life-saving care. Throughout this time, they have responded to more than 23,500 incidents across the region, with road traffic collisions being the most frequent type of incident responded to by the team.
  
  
• They do not receive Government funding and must therefore raise £8.5m a year through public donations to remain operational.
• For more information visit: https://www.greatnorthairambulance.co.uk/ or follow @gnairambulance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.