Picking up the pieces | London's Air Ambulance Charity

1st Feb 2019

In our 30 years saving lives, our advanced medical trauma team have become world leaders in rapid response and cutting-edge pre-hospital care, and treat on average five critically injured people a day.

The care the team delivers by the roadside is usually only the beginning of a very long and difficult recovery journey for the patients and their families. Often the real trauma begins when patients and their loved ones get home and have to adjust to the new practicalities and emotions of lives that have been torn apart and have changed beyond recognition.

So, how do people pick up the pieces after trauma?

We have developed a series of podcasts that explores this question. Host Myleene Klass meets those who have been treated by our service and their loved ones to hear their story and how they have rebuilt their lives since.

Episode Two

Release date 18 February 2019

In this episode Myleene Klass talks to two women who both had a leg amputated after traumatic road collisions. Vicky and Ronke discuss their relationships with their new bodies, how loved ones and stunned strangers make them feel about their prosthetic limbs, and why re-living their accidents through the insurance claim process is so distressing.

DISCLAIMER: In this episode the word ‘accident’ is used a number of times. In Vicky and Ronke’s cases we should be calling them ‘crashes’ or collisions’, as they were preventable incidents. Click here to find out more about why the language we use is so important: http://www.roadpeace.org/take-action/crash-not-accident/

You can listen to the podcast via any of the platforms below:

Episode One

Release date 11 February 2019

In this episode Myleene Klass meets Yair, who was involved in a serious road collision, and his wife Yael. Together they explain what it’s like for both patients and their carers to lose their sense of identity, how best to cope with the practicalities of planning family life, and why honest communication plays such a big part in keeping a couple together during particularly trying months.