William f lies in to rescue woman hit by police van
PRINCE William’s last shift as an air ambulance pilot proved to be a dramatic one as he helped to fly a woman run over by a police van to hospital.
In a bizarre twist, the patient, who suffered severe head and leg injuries, had earlier been reported as missing – while the vehicle involved had been responding to a 999 call to locate her.
Hours before the call-out, William, 35, his senior pilot, Captain Dave Kelly, and a three- strong medical team, had posed for photographs to mark the end of his two-year tenure as a co-pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA).
The prince and his family are due to return to London next month, in time for Prince George to start school in September and for William to take on full-time royal duties as his grandfather, Prince Philip, retires. And while not all shifts are eventful, the Duke of Cambridge’s final stint proved to be busier than he could have ever imagined.
Norfolk Police said the woman, who has not been named but is in her 50s, is still ‘critical’ in hospital after being struck by the marked police van, on a road about eight miles from Norwich at around 10.20pm on Thursday.
A police spokesman said: ‘Officers were in the area responding to a 999 call relating to concerns for the safety of a woman who had been reported missing.’ They confirmed that the victim was the missing woman officers were searching for.
William and his EAAA crew were called at 11.13pm and scrambled their Airbus H135 helicopter.
The accident occurred in a relatively uninhabited area and according to locals, co-pilot William – Captain Wales, as he is known in his flying role – and Captain Dave Kelly had to land in a field full of bullocks in pitch black conditions. The team then cut a barbed wire fence and flattened a hedgerow to make their way onto the road.
Farmer Brian Harvey, who owns the field, told the Daily Mail that he had heard the helicopter coming in before he went to bed. He joked: ‘I don’t think the cows would have minded. They wouldn’t have panicked.’
An EAAA spokesman said that the crew treated the victim at the scene for ‘complex serious head injuries’, before flying her to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.
The crew finally got back to their base at Marshalls Airport in Cambridge at 1.30am yesterday.
A spokesman for the Independent Police Complaints Commission said: ‘The road was closed while initial scene investigations were carried out and remains closed this morning.’
The spokesman also confirmed that an IPCC investigation has been opened into the incident.
He added that the prince could be called on as a witness into the probe, but that ‘there has been no indication that this will be necessary’.
‘Dramatic last shift’