At Portland House Nursery we are learning about people in our communities who help us. We had a special visitor who came to talk to the preschool children about the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service and how they help people. Lynne is a volunteer with the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service and she told us all about the important work that the rescue service does each day to help people who need lifesaving medical assistance to get to hospital.
The air ambulance is used because it needs to take people really quickly to a hospital and because they can travel faster than the land ambulances, they can get there much quicker and also the helicopter can travel to get to help people who are injured out in the countryside or may have fallen whilst climbing where the land ambulances can’t go.
We listened to a story about the mascots Polly paramedic and Percy the pilot and how when the alarm goes off, they fly in their helicopter to rescue and help people and rescued a boy called Ted who had fallen climbing at the seaside and was taken to the hospital in the air ambulance. This sparked lots of discussion around the children’s knowledge and experiences of hospitals and other services that might help us and questions that they had. We learnt that the helicopter is bright yellow and needs the space of at least 3 double decker buses to be able to land safely and a police helicopter is black, so when we look up into the sky and see the helicopters, we can identify them and give them a wave. Percy the pilot wears a special black uniform and Polly paramedic wears a bright orange one, Lynne brought some uniforms in that a volunteer had kindly made so they could see what the pilot and paramedics wear, and they were keen to try them both on.
Lynne told us that the Yorkshire Air Ambulance currently has 2 air ambulances in service and that they would like to have 3 so that they can help more people, the air ambulances go to rescue people who have been involved in car accidents the most and takes them to the hospitals usually in Leeds. We learnt that the hospital has a flat roof with a big letter H where the helicopter can land safely.
We are also very lucky that we have a big field across the road from nursery where the Yorkshire Air ambulance sometimes lands, so in the afternoon we went across to visit Reinwood field so we could see where the helicopter would land if it needs to come over here. There was certainly room for at least 3 double decker buses.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance is an independent charity providing a lifesaving rapid response emergency service to 5 million people across the whole of Yorkshire.
A service that provides State-of-the-art Emergency Care
