Biker thanks air ambulance

A motorcyclist who owes his life to the Scone-based Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) crew has thanked them with a big donation from the biking community.

James Millar, from Dunblane, was involved in a horrific crash in August 2015 when a driver pulled across his path and he suffered two cardiac arrests at the scene. Thanks to the air ambulance service, he was taken to hospital by helicopter where he was in the high dependency unit and intensive care for 31 days.

Last week he handed over a cheque for £1000 on behalf of Motorcycle Law Scotland (MLS) to SCAA to support all the work they do getting injured motorcyclists to hospital as quickly as possible.

James said:“There is what’s called the‘golden hour’which is critical to the wellbeing of the victims of road traffic collisions and I know that I would not be around today if it were not for services such as those provided by SCAA.

“MLS do a lot of fundraising for SCAA and when I found out, I wanted to hand over the cheque to show my appreciation. I also hope it acts as a reminder to others of how vital their service is. I’m standing here right now, but it could have been so very different for me.”

Road crashes account for 24 per cent of the SCAA’s helicopter’s workload. To date, the charity has flown to 340 traffic incidents and of these, 114 (35 per cent) involved motorcyclists.

David Craig, CEO of SCAA said:“We are very grateful to MLS and to James. As a charity which relies 100 per cent on funds from the public it will contribute to the daily life-saving work of SCAA. With road traffic collisions representing a high proportion of all our call-outs, the support we receive from the motorcycling community is tremendous.”