The Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance made a lifesaving visit to Chesterfield’s Pro-Act Stadium at the weekend after a supporter attending the game against Lincoln City was taken seriously ill. Referee David Webb called a temporary halt to proceedings during the game to allow the air ambulance to land, but after further treatment and the patient being airlifted to hospital, the match was able to restart.
Tower Lotteries are proud to run and administrate the lottery that funds this air ambulance. Income from the lottery represents a significant part of the charities income and it landing at a football ground brought home the importance of the service to Head of Operations Richard Wild, who himself is a Football League match official.
“I have officiated at that ground many times and only last month ran the line directly in-front of where the gentleman took ill. It is great to know that a service of this nature is available to all of us in our hour of need, and due to the excellent work of staff at the ground the team at Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance, the person they treated is responding well.
“During my career I have had to stop matches for all kinds of reasons but thankfully never for an air ambulance to land. It is something, that although we raise millions of pounds for and I see them grounded quite often, you just hope you don’t have to see one in action first-hand. On this occasion, however, there was clearly a need for it. Referee David Webb will have had this communicated to him by his 4th official and stopped the game accordingly and taken the players off the pitch. The game was stopped for about 30 minutes before the man was taken away by the helicopter, at which point the players will have done a brief warm-up before the match resumed.”
Tower Lotteries are also proud to work with The Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance. Two volunteers with the charity recently attended a Lincoln City home match at which Richard was officiating and used his complimentary tickets as a thank you for the hard work they do. Fundraisers working for various air ambulances up and the down the country will often attend games taking advantage of Richard’s free tickets when he is one of the officials with Doncaster Rovers, Shrewsbury Town and Sheffield United being amongst the grounds visited recently.