Edinburgh Rugby and Scotland star Darcy Graham has thanked ambulance staff for saving his brother's life after a horror crash.
Graham visited Hawick Ambulance Station to thank staff Gary Brown and Jenny Braithwaite and present the station with a donation of £500 and a signed match jersey.
Aged 17 at the time, his brother Clark Graham was involved in an accident near the village of Ashkirk in the Borders, north of Hawick, which left him in a coma for three-and-a-half weeks.
Graham, who is now preparing for the Rugby World Cup in France, previously donated £500 to the Hawick station – donated on behalf of the club’s sponsors Scottish Building Society - after winning the team’s Player of The Month last September.
He was once again chosen as Edinburgh’s April’s Player of the Month this year and chose the ambulance service as the beneficiary.
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Graham said: “It means so much to me and my family. Without the Scottish Ambulance Service and what they did that night at Clark’s accident, he wouldn’t be here, so it’s an easy one for us to give back to them to just kind of say thank you. The quick decisions they made that night thankfully saved Clark’s life.
“It was very emotional meeting the crew. It’s kind of hard to put into words what to say to them. It’s an easy one to for me to pick. It’s not just my family they’ve helped, it’s so many other people’s families and lives they’ve saved from them just doing their job.
“Day to day, it’s what they are here for and we kind of take it for granted almost. Having the ambulance service, having the NHS, everything, we are very lucky to have these services just on a phone call."
Gary Brown, who has been with the Scottish Ambulance Service for 14 years, said it was “fantastic" of Darcy to donate to SAS.
He said: “It was great to meet Darcy and hopefully we can meet Clark soon. The money will be donated to the station, so it will stay in Hawick."
He said the money will directly benefit the patients the ambulance service attends to.
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