Air Ambulance Week 2025: ‘Every Mission Starts with You’

EAAA provides advanced critical care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to the most seriously ill and injured people in the region by air and road. The charity’s crews, from bases in Norwich and Cambridge, treat an average of six people each day.

Rob Shaughnessy from Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk was one of the people to benefit from EAAA’s expert help from an EAAA crew when he suffered a cardiac arrest at home in December 2019. His wife, Tracey, was woken by an ‘odd’ noise coming from Rob in the early hours of the morning. A team from the ambulance service was at Rob’s side within seven minutes.

“I remember the paramedics saying that the air ambulance was coming,” Tracey says.

The EAAA doctor and critical care paramedic crew were nearby in a critical care car while on their way back to the Norwich base. They were diverted to Rob and Tracey’s house to bring advanced critical care directly to the scene in the moments when Rob needed it most. He was safely taken outside to the back of the ambulance, where the EAAA crew could perform the advanced interventions that Rob needed, which included anaesthetising him and taking over his breathing.

“I still can’t believe how it was all done in the early hours of the morning right there outside our house,” Tracey adds. “I honestly believe that if EAAA doctor hadn’t arrived when they did, and if Rob hadn’t received the treatment he did, then he wouldn’t have survived and been in the amazing condition that he is today. It truly is an amazing feeling. Fate was on our side that night.”

“It was the worst day of my life, but the right resources were there at the right time,” Rob says.

Each emergency EAAA tasking costs an average of £4,250. Last year the charity provided urgent treatment and care to almost 2,000 people, relying almost entirely on donations from the community it services to deliver its life-saving service.

Matthew Jones, CEO of East Anglian Air Ambulance, says, “This year’s Air Ambulance Week campaign puts the focus on the people who make each mission possible – the public. When people choose to support East Anglian Air Ambulance, they’re not just donating – they’re becoming part of somebody’s second chance.”

Matthew adds, “We’re grateful for the continued remarkable support which enables our crews to attend people in the worst moments of their lives, 24/7 across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Behind every life saved is a quiet act of kindness that made it possible.”

Organised by Air Ambulances UK, the national charity supporting the life-saving work of the UK’s 21 air ambulance charities, Air Ambulance Week is dedicated to raising awareness and funds for the life-saving pre-hospital care delivered daily by air ambulance crews.

Support Air Ambulance Week 2025 by making a donation to East Anglian Air Ambulance.