Tickets are on sale for the air ambulance’s annual fundraising raffle with a top prize of £10,000 up for grabs.
The Great North Air Ambulance Service is hoping the raffle will help raise funds to keep the charity operational – after call outs hit an all time high last year.
Over 2,100 incidents across Cumbria and beyond were attended by teams last year and it’s an expensive service to keep running.
The charity does not receive any Government funding, which means it has to raise a total of £8.5 million every year through public donations to keep the service running.
Last year’s raffle raised over £112,000 and the top prize was won by Alan Pearson, from Shildon, who decided to share the prize money with his brother Tony and donate some of it back into the charity.
Recalling the phone call he had to tell him he’d won the top prize, Alan said: “I think everything just went blank, it still hasn’t registered. I was smiling straight away, it’s amazing, it’s just something that you don’t expect.
“It’s vital work that GNAAS does, it’s saving lives. So, I would tell any of the people, if they can afford to play the raffle, do it.”
This year’s runner-up prizes include an overnight stay in Middleton Lodge, or a three-night stay in Northumberland.
Rapid response vehicles, paramedics and doctors operate most nights in Cumbria as well as seven days a week in the North East.
The charity provides advanced life-saving treatment via helicopter during both the day and night.
David Stockton, chief executive at GNAAS, said: “Our critical care team attends to the region’s most critically ill and injured patients. Our highly trained doctor and paramedic team can perform surgery, administer drugs and even provide blood products by the side of the road.
“This highly skilled, emergency medical care comes at a price; it costs £23,200 to run our service daily, and despite the amazing support from the general public, it is still likely that we will need to draw from our reserves to keep the service running.”
“This is the difficulty with being 100% reliant on public donation, but the upsides of this are that it allows our service to set its own criteria, assign finances to the equipment and expertise that matters the most to ensure our team are able to respond to any eventuality, and ultimately, save more lives.”
GNAAS has responded to more than 27,000 incidents since it became registered as a charity in 2002, and with the help of the public they hope to continue providing critical care to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Raffle tickets cost only £1 each, and the draw will take place in early December, just in time for Christmas.
Tickets can be bought by visiting gna.as/raffle_2024 or calling 01325 487263.
