“I wouldn’t be here to see my son grow up”

Together we’re supporting the life-saving work of local air ambulances through our Community Champions scheme, including the Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance.

It’s a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service transporting the equivalent of an A&E department with medics, blood transfusions and vital equipment to the most serious and time-critical 999 calls.

That’s the situation Michael Govier (pictured centre) found himself in, one day in July 2016.

He’d finished work and was cycling home to his partner and their 18-month old son in Bracebridge Heath, near Lincoln. It started to rain and he thought about putting on waterproofs but decided not to.

Two days later he woke up at the Queen’s Medical Centre hospital in Nottingham two days later. He’d been in a collision with a car and sustained a serious head injury.

A bystander had called 999, prompting Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance Paramedic Roger Linnell and Dr Simon Topham to jump into the charity’s Rapid Response road vehicle.

The air ambulance also fought its way through the bad weather.

Roger explained: “We got to Michael at the same time. It was obvious he was in a bad way.

"He had a serious head injury, you could see the swelling getting bigger as we looked at it.”

Bystanders and police officers tried to hold tarpaulins up against the rain while the crew worked.

The crew put Michael into an induced coma and administered drugs to stop the swelling on his brain, took over his breathing and gave pain relief, and flew him to Nottingham.

Miraculously he was in intensive care for just two days, on a ward for five, and discharged less than a week after the collision.

“Without the Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance I really believe I would not be here now to see my son grow up,” Michael said.

Money is being raised in all sorts of ways, from donations every time members shop with their dividend card to pin badges and sales of special Gadsby's lemon slices - find out more here.