Up Against Time

The challenge ahead for London's Air Ambulance

By Paul Clarke Photography

October 28^th, 2022

Preparation

I had an introduction a few weeks ago to the team at the London Air Ambulance. "Paul would love to come up and see London from here". Yes, he would. And so he did.

A warm welcome and straight up to the operations centre and helipad. London's Air Ambulance covers Greater London, and bits of the home counties, has a bigger team than you'd think, operates response cars as well as helicopters, and is a charity – working with, but not as part of, the NHS (more of that below). Who knew?

We headed up the ramps to the big red flying thing; I'd seen it land about 20 minutes earlier while I was parking up, so that was a bit of luck. "Oh, if the klaxon goes, you need to move to this point here, because that means it's a job and..." – the conclusion: "...we don't want you to get your head chopped off by the rotors" remained unsaid.

Actually, anything else remained unsaid, because almost immediately, it was KLAXON TIME. What are the chances? It's hard to think about positivity, and about concepts like 'luck', when the harsh reality is that the klaxon is telling us that somewhere, a few miles away, scenes are unfolding that most of us could never contemplate.

And this team are calmly preparing to not only see, but do. Again and again, maybe half a dozen times a day.

Into the air...

...and back again. Up, tilt, and MOVE – shifting fast to the west; but within a couple of minutes, clear that it wasn't needed this time, and returning to base.

I didn't dig into the details, but a "no longer needed" is likely to indicate either a surprisingly positive outcome, or the worst. I fear those two possibilities may be in something of an unequal ratio.

Back to earth

Once everything was secured, I was allowed up to the actual helipad to take a closer look...

Up against time

Of course, it's the people I am always drawn to. Their humour, strength, experience, bravery. All of it. The chopper is a wonder in its own way, but it's the people that make all this happen.

Well, the people, and the money. And there's a big fundraising challenge facing them. They need to raise £15m, soon, to replace the aircraft.

If these words and pictures have inspired you in any way to lend a hand with that, their appeal link is here. Please give something if you can. If you want to use any of these photos to create your own content to support their objectives, get in touch.