‘Lovely man’ Nick was first doctor at plane crash disaster scene
HE WON AWARDS FOR HIS WORK WITH EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM WHICH HAD HELPED TO SET UP
THE first doctor at the scene of the Kegworth air disaster has died aged 65.
Dr Nick Foster rushed from his home in Lockington to the scene of the crash, on an M1 embankment, in January 1989.
A total of 47 people died and 74 were seriously injured when a British Midland Boeing 737 came down short of the runway.
Dr Foster had been serving as a founder member of what is now the East Midlands Immediate Care Scheme (Emics) – a team of volunteer doctors who respond to emergencies.
A qualified dentist, , anaesthetist, reconstructive surgeon and GP, he was working part- time at the Orchard Sur- gery, in Kegworth, until til July, July when he was taken ill with bowel cancer
He died at home in the early hours of Sunday, September 27, leaving wife of 34 years, Gillian Wilmot, and their sons, Sebastian and Dominic.
Gillian said: “He was fantastic – as soft as butter and the most amazing husband who would turn his hand to anything. He absolutely loved his family.”
She said the pandemic had prevented his cancer being treated quickly enough to stop it.
“By the time they could treat him he was no longer well enough for chemotherapy.
“I’m not blaming anyone – I know there will be a lot of people in the same situation,” she said. “He wanted to come home and we had a home hospice for him. We were able to tell him how much we loved him and what a great doctor he was.
“He was such an amazing, supportive man for me as a career wife – not many men in the 1980s would have been so supportive.
“I was very fortunate.”
Dr Tim Gray, chairman of Emics, said: “He was an amazing guy – a dentist who went on to do facial reconstruction and work as an anaesthetist before becoming a GP and training new doctors at Nottingham University.
“He was also a black belt in judo and in his time with Emics responded to about 3,500 calls, including Kegworth.
“He lived in Lockington and was the first on the scene and able to help a lot of people.
“It’s a great loss, not just to his family but to the whole community.
“He was still working two days a week at the surgery in Kegworth and was very active in our organisation from when he joined as a founder member in 1985.
“I will really miss him greatly. He touched touchedmany many lives.” lives”
Dr Nigel Cartwright, a partner at the Orchard Surgery, said: “He was a great enthusiast for all that he did and loved being a doctor.
“He was extremely passionate about medicine.
“He was also a renowned educator of doctors. Many people have been saying what a lovely man he was.”
Dr Foster was born in Leicester and raised in Hong Kong, where his father was a Church of England dean.
He returned to England as a boarder at Loughborough Grammar School and then studied dentistry and later medicine at Sheffield University in the 1970s. He went on to train in Zurich and Glasgow.
From 1988 he worked at the Orchard Surgery.
Writing on his Linkedin profile, he said of his work: “I found rural general practice as my niche. I was able to combine my interest in general medical practice and pre-hospital emergency medicine – one minute treating someone’s tonsillitis and in the next minute, anaesthetising a patient following life-threatening trauma on the M1.
“I love general practice, the diversity and challenge, the patients whose long-term care you look after and the friendships you make with patients.”
Dr Foster won two Queen’s Awards for his Emics work. He was a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a member of the Royal Col