"Thank You For Saving My Grandpa's Life"

Today has been a day I have been looking forward to for a long time, and felt privileged to attend.

Thanks to the Yorkshire Ambulance Service I was able at long last to say thank-you in person to some people who had helped us immensely when I had my fall and broke my neck.

We had an informal and enjoyable lunchtime get together with YAS Ms Fixit Brogan, ambulance crew paramedic Wendy, ambulance driver Luke, neighbours Les and Val and mercy mission fast driver Bob.

 Pat, Mark, Wendy, Luke, Val and Les.   Bob is behind the camera.

Sitting in the 'cinema' to watch Restoration Man 'Best Towers'

The big green and yellow taxi returns.   Bob Swallow's the man in black, for completeness.

We had a fine finger feast courtesy of Pat and Edwin Booth then sat down in the lounge to watch the 11 minutes of the water tower part of Restoration Man's 'Best Towers' episode.

We went through the events of the night back in April and I think we were all able to fill some nagging gaps and to get a much fuller picture of just what had happened.   I found it particularly interesting as I had been unconscious for most of the time.   My most spectacular contribution being to bleed a lot - as Les and Val know all too well as they cleared it up the following day - as well as seeing to dog Bess and cat Purrcy in our absence.   Bob had driven Pat at speed to Preston when they reported 'we think we're losing him' five days in to my stay.

I regret to report that I made a seriously spectacular mess of the inside of the ambulance.   Besides the copious bleeding I performed a man sized projectile vomit which hit the ambulance roof and went 'everywhere'.   The rubber mattress on which I was strapped was deemed beyond salvation and had to be replaced.   It took five clinical waste bags to deal with the cleaning.   Not just that, Wendy had slipped on the literally bloody floor when attending to me as we raced towards Preston thanks to Luke's skills.

Arriving just too late today were two video clips from grandsons Ben (9) and James (13) both of whom had sent a message for Luke and Wendy in particular "Thank you for saving my grandpa's life" they both said.   The videos will of course be forwarded.

It was at times an emotional lunchtime as well as a very happy one.   I lost my composure a couple of times as I thanked Wendy.   Those videos would have had everybody in tears!

And a cheery final wave from Luke as 'my' ambulance resumes work:

Footnote;   by sheer coincidence this was the very ambulance that took me to Preston.   It was not the one that was stolen and involved in a police chase across the Dales back in July (see Blog posting of 14th July 2018).