Air ambulance dream getting closer to reality

Air ambulance dream getting closer to reality

15 July 2015

WITHIN hours of Dr John Hinds’ funeral in Portaferry on Thursday, 50,000 people had signed a petition for an air ambulance in his memory. 

As mourners gathered in St Patrick’s Church to pay their respects to the 35 year-old “flying doctor” of Irish motorcycle sport, who died following an accident at the Skerries 100 practice road race, his campaign for Northern Ireland’s first air ambulance continued to snowball with thousands of new signatures.

Dr Hinds, a former pupil of St Patrick’s Grammar School, was a consultant anaesthetist at Craigavon Area Hospital, but spent his free time on the road racing circuit where he was credited with saving many lives by being quickly on the scene of accidents on his own bike.

He was passionate abut the need for quick response times in emergencies and had actively campaigned for an air ambulance.

His loved ones encouraged mourners to maintain the momentum of his campaign with his partner Dr Janet Acheson urging everyone at last week’s funeral mass to help ensure Dr Hinds’ dream comes true.

Describing her lost partner as a “quiet man” who “radiated grace from the heart and love from the soul”, Dr Acheson affectionately remembered Dr Hinds by his call sign, Delta Seven, who she urged to “ride on in peace.”

“I urge you all today, on John’ s behalf, to help us ensure that his dream of a first-class, world-leading trauma network — with a doctor-led helicopter emergency medical service at its core — becomes a reality, so that it can start saving lives on our doorsteps,” she said.

Her call was echoed by Dr Hinds’ fellow racing medic Dr Fred McSorley who drew applause from mourners when he spoke in his eulogy of his hope that Dr Hinds’ pager, which has now been deactivated by the Northern Ambulance Service, would one day be adopted by an air ambulance in his memory.

He said he hoped the drive for an air ambulance service would continue and that Delta Seven would one day be inherited by such a service.

“I would hope with the dedication and help of people around that in the years to come the call sign Delta Seven would be heard as it had been cleared to land in the heliport at the top of the Royal Victoria Hospital,” he said.

Dr Hinds’ cousin, Fr Michael Hinds, conducted Thursday’s funeral service, telling mourners the death of his independent cousin had seemed “a macabre joke”. 

“The role reversal was almost too perverse to comprehend as John lay in the ICU bed in Beaumont with monitors bleeping, syringe drivers infusing medications and with others administering the care,” he said.

“Surely the ministration of medical care; well that was his role – his expertise, even to a large degree his very raison d’être in life. 

“How now could death be stealing this great person from all of us?

“Having fought hard for life until the end, in his typically unassuming  and unaffected fashion John – our flying doc, the bikers’ guardian angel – slipped gently into eternity.

“We remember too in gratitude that it was that brilliant mind, together with his skilled medical hands, that perpetuated life for so many others, that did so much good, without seeking reward or praise in return.

“John we all know was not only a doctor and consultant of eminent medical ability, but also a person of such eminent humanity and care that he was ever ready to share that ability for the betterment and good of others. 

“John’s death is a tragic loss to so many – an unimaginable rupture in so many of our lives.”