‘I am here now thanks to air 999’

BIKER IN CRASH WITH TRACTOR SAYS HE’S ‘LUCKY TO BE ALIVE’

BIKER Howard Singer says he feels lucky to be alive after his bike collided with a tractor in a lane.

The 68-year-old’s helmet came off in the impact and he was thrown 20ft into the air.

He was taken to hospital where his shattered body was repaired.

Howard had sustained multiple injuries, which included cuts to his face, friction burns to both sides of his forehead, a bleed on the brain, a fractured skull, fractured vertebrae, a dislocated left hip and fractured hip socket, multiple breaks of eight ribs, a collapsed lung, lacerated spleen and bruised aorta.

Not surprisingly, he has no memory of events from a few minutes before the accident until about a week later.

“I am very grateful for what the air ambulance crew did for me,” he said.

“I believe it’s the reason I am here today. I feel they saved my life. If it wasn’t for them and the lady who gave me first aid before the helicopter arrived, I don’t think I would be here today.”

Howard is a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists and has completed advanced motorcycle training provided by police. He has ridden motorbikes as a hobby since he was 17.

He was on his own when the accident happened in June 2019 in the village of Gaddesby – about four miles from his home in Twyford.

Howard was behind slow-moving traffic going through the village where there were parked cars at the side of the road due to an event being held at the school.

On leaving the village on a straight road with good visibility he had committed to overtaking the slow-moving traffic when a tractor suddenly turned right, across the front of him.

“I had no time to stop and drove head on into the side of it,” he said. “The police described it as ‘a series of coincidences that collided to create an accident.’”

The driver of one of the cars was an armed forces-trained first aider and she put Howard into the recovery position and kept him awake until the emergency services arrived.

He was still lying in the road when the air ambulance critical care crew arrived, after landing the helicopter in a nearby field. Howard was taken to the Major Trauma Centre at the Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham, by land ambulance so that if his chest injury caused him to become more unstable and deteriorate further, he could be anaesthetised – a procedure that cannot be safely conducted in flight in the rear of the helicopter.

The air ambulance critical care team accompanied him and did a clinical handover to the trauma team at Nottingham on arrival.

Howard was taken to the operating theatre to have his hip relocated then had more surgery to have his hip socket repaired. He was finally discharged by doctors after four months.

Howard was able to go back to his job as an engineer’s pattern maker, then retired in August 2020.

“I don’t think I am 100 per cent recovered but I am just so glad I am still alive and doing what I can do,” he said.