Great North Air Ambulance Service

A 71-year-old woman from Stockton has celebrated the two-year anniversary since the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) saved her life by getting a tattoo of the charity’s logo on her back.

Back in July 2021, Sue Wilkinson had been enjoying coffee with friends when she started to feel unwell.

Mrs Wilkinson said: “I had said to the girls that I had a lot of pain between my shoulder blades but we’re always moaning about pain, so it got left as that and then we wandered around Primark.”

On returning home from the trip, Sue felt like she was going to faint. Her partner, Alastair Wright called 999, promoting an urgent response from the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), GNAAS and a CIPHER Medical ambulance crew.

Mrs Wilkinson’s condition quickly deteriorated to the point that her heart stopped beating.

Mrs Wilkinson said: “That’s when GNAAS performed a miracle on me.”

The retired civil servant was placed in an induced coma on scene and taken to James Cook University Hospital where she stayed for six days. She has since made a full recovery.

Mrs Wilkinson said: “The teams brought me back from the brink of death and do such a magnificent job. They saved my life.”

Mrs Wilkinson – who says she is more commonly known locally as the “corned beef pie lady” in recognition of her baking, visited the GNAAS team back in September 2021 at their Eaglescliffe base and brought along pies for all those who helped her.

Last week marked the two-year anniversary since Mrs Wilkinson said she was ‘brought back to life’, and she decided to mark the occasion by visiting a local tattoo shop in Stockton.

Mrs Wilkinson said: “I wanted to celebrate two years since having my life back.

“It was funny really, walking into the tattoo shop full of young people who were probably thinking who is this granny with her walking stick?

“I’m still 18-years-old in my head.”

Since her cardiac arrest, Mrs Wilkinson has decided to give something back and now volunteers at GNAAS on a regular basis, bringing her famous homemade corned beef pies and sausage rolls for the team.

Mrs Wilkinson said: “I wake up happy every single day because I’m alive and that’s because of GNAAS.

“I’ve been able to celebrate every milestone since like Christmas with my family, adventures with friends.

“Please support GNAAS, it is so important.”

GNAAS does not receive government funding and therefore needs to raise £7.7m a year to remain operational. During summer, their critical care team experience an increase in call-outs of over 50 per cent. To support the charity visit: gna.as/donatesummer

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 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 £7.7m 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