SCOTLAND'S first charity air ambulance has carried out its 200th rescue flight, less than a year after it came into service.
The crew were called to a horse-riding accident in the Clyde Valley on Sunday, marking the milestone eight months after its first flight.
Scotland's Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) is based at Perth Airport and supplements the work of the Scottish Ambulance Service across the country.
It is crewed by paramedics and operates 10 hours a day, seven days a week.
It costs about £1.5 million each year, made up from public and private donations and contributions from other charities.
The helicopter has flown more than 17,800 miles since May last year. SCAA chief executive Gavin Davey said: "Our crews have dealt with all types of emergency from road traffic accidents and serious falls to medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes.
"The people of Scotland seem to have taken SCAA to their heart and they know that the only fuel we fly on is their charity giving.
"Our growing band of supporters continues to step up to the mark and ensure Helimed 76 keeps flying for the benefit of everyone in the country.
"There is no doubt that this unique service in Scotland has contributed to saving numerous lives and relieving pain, and SCAA's work is impacting on the lives of hundreds of people right across Scotland - either directly with patients or indirectly with relatives, friends and colleagues."
Shortly after its launch the operating hours of the helicopter were changed to meet demand.
It started working between 8am and 6pm but the pattern of call-outs showed that the vast majority of deployments happen later in the day, so new operational times of 10am to 8pm were introduced.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article