SCAA lifeline to the islands
Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) continues to prove a vital lifeline to the islands with visits to the west coast islands 11 times within the past month alone.
The recent demand for SCAA’s rapid transfer capability to get patients to urgent or emergency hospital care on the mainland has seen the crew deploy to Mull, Islay, Cumbrae, Tiree, Bute, Arran and Skye.
The most recent mission of this type took SCAA to the island of Mull this week after being called to carry out the urgent airlift of a patient to the mainland.
SCAA airlifted the teenage boy to hospital care at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital at Glasgow - just minutes away by air.
Other missions this week include attending at a serious road traffic collision on the A9 near Dunblane. SCAA paramedics were among the first on scene and worked alongside colleagues from the Scottish Ambulance Service, Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue to attend a woman injured in the one-vehicle accident.
* * * The Tayside branch of the International Police Association hosted its annual Ceilidh Weekend and donated £635.50 to SCAA. This is just the latest donation made to the air ambulance charity by the group with their total support to date being just over £3000.
And local officers were among the latest batch of police recruits to graduate from Tulliallan Police College recently. The 186-strong class of 4/2017 nominated SCAA as their chosen charity and raised an arresting £2567.17 through a series of fundraising activities.
Thanks also to the staff of Galbraith in Perth who staged a raffle in the office and raised £121.
The staff at the Pine Tree Leisure Park at Tyndrum have also been busy on SCAA’s behalf. Their Easter fun day raised an egg-cellent £350.
And some fishy goings-on in Pitlochry landed £750 for SCAA when the local angling club held a raffle and auction for the air ambulance during their recent open night.
Scone Ladies’ Carpet Bowls Club sadly closed recently but members kindly agreed to donate their residual funds of £86.36 to SCAA.
And members of the Tesco Retired Staff Association gifted £50 after a talk on the work of SCAA at their recent lunch meeting at McDiarmid Park.
Pitlochry Station Bookshop continues to steam ahead with its amazing fundraising. A further donation of £300 takes their total support of SCAA to date to £27,680.
The most recent collection of clothes for recycling gathered for SCAA at Perth College UHI has raised a further £22. And the Cupar Chapter No 330 of the Order of the Eastern Star donated £75.
Locally placed collecting cans emptying out their valuable contents for SCAA this week include those from: the Country Store, Kinloch Rannoch £101.97; Inn On The Tay, Grandtully £48.73; Perth College UHI £266.09; the Riverbank Cafe, Pitlochry £125.75 and Taymouth Marina Restaurant, Kenmore £53.69.
* * * SCAA recently hosted a group of S2 and S3 pupils from the Community School of Auchterarder who have selected the air ambulance charity as their subject for their Youth Philanthropy Initiative submission. The pupils will do a presentation on SCAA at the school and - if successful - win £3000 for their subject charity.