GREAT Western Air Ambulance will this week celebrate seven years of saving lives across the region.

The charity, which provides critical care across parts of Wiltshire, Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, and Gloucestershire will celebrate its seventh birthday and the anniversary of its first mission on Wednesday.

Pat Kemp is just one of the thousands of people whose lives have been saved by the GWAAC.

She was driving home when a brain haemorrhage caused her to veer off the motorway and into a tree.

She had felt perfectly well when she left work but, just one junction away from Swindon on the M4, she crashed.

Doctors warned her family that only one in three people who suffer a brain haemorrhage even make it to hospital alive.

But she survived, thanks to the critical care team from Great Western Air Ambulance Charity.

Critical care paramedic Neil Hooper drove to the scene in one of the charity’s RRVs, and administered critical care at the roadside.

He then accompanied Pat to Frenchay Hospital in an ambulance, where she then stayed for 17 days.

Two years on she still suffers the occasional pain in her head, but is slowly on the mend.

Pat said: “The team do a tremendous job, for which we and lots of other people are most grateful.

“Without them I would have died as it was touch and go for the first few days I was in Frenchay whether I would survive or not.

“One in three people who have a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage apparently don’t even make it to hospital, let alone while they’re driving and on a motorway.

“I was extremely lucky and am so grateful to Neil for saving my life.”

Since the charity was founded in 2008 the team, which is based at Filton airfield, has attended more than 14,000 missions, including 4,251 by helicopter and 10,072 by rapid response vehicles.

GWAAC fundraising manager Emma Carter said: “We are thrilled to be celebrating our seventh birthday.

“I want to say thank you to everyone involved with the charity since we launched for their hard work and dedication.

“The number of missions we have attended since 2008 shows just how crucial the air ambulance is.”

To find out more about the air ambulance visit greatwesternairambulance.com