Gore family joins fundraising effort

A wee Southlander is planning to join the Starship Foundation’s fundraising efforts with her own lemonade stand to say thanks for the air ambulance flight that saved her life. Elliott Gulliver, from Gore, will celebrate her eighth birthday next month, but her mum, Rebekah Prattley, said she might not have made it without her air ambulance flight seven years ago. ‘‘It was the most frightening time in our lives,’’ Prattley said. Elliot had been in and out of hospitals in Southland and Christchurch since she was 5 weeks old, after she was diagnosed with biliary atresia – a rare liver disorder that affects one in every 8000 babies born in New Zealand. She was 7 months old when her liver started failing. She needed to be sent from Invercargill to the Starship children’s hospital in Auckland as quickly as possible for life-saving treatment. Fluid had begun building up in Elliot’s abdomen and a normal flight was out of the question as flying at a high altitude may have caused her tummy to rupture, Prattley said. She hadn’t heard about the Starship Air Ambulance before her daughter needed its services. ‘‘There’s no way we could have got her there any other way,’’ she said. Less than a month later, Elliot received a liver transplant from a deceased donor.

Today, she’s a bubbly, caring, creative little girl with dreams of becoming a vet when she grows up, her mum said. Elliot was too young to remember what happened, but Prattley documented the experience for her. Every year, on the anniversary of her liver transplant, the family take out those memories and celebrate Elliot’s journey. ‘‘She knows about all the people that supported her,’’ Prattley said. The Starship Air Ambulance transported 11 children from Southland last year. Another 120 children were admitted to the Starship children’s hospital last year. Starship Foundation spokeswoman Jodie Bakewell-White said that on average, the air ambulance was needed by New Zealand children and their families every 48 hours. It completed 194 retrieval missions throughout the country last year. The Starship Foundation is facing a shortfall of $500,000 this year and Prattley urged Southlanders to consider donating to keep the air ambulance flying. ‘‘You never know when someone you love will need this service.’’

Rebekah Prattley says she’s grateful to Starship Air Ambulance staff for saving her daughter Elliott Gulliver’s life. Little Elliott Gulliver on the tarmac at Invercargill Airport before her flight to Auckland in the Starship Air Ambulance.