A pilot from the East Anglian Air Ambulance purchased a parking ticket while waiting for a patient who had been stabbed outside a shop on Dereham Road in Norwich.
The East Anglian Air Ambulance was forced to land at the foot of Grapes Hill after it was called following a stabbing outside the East of England Co-Op on Dereham Road at around 6.30pm on Monday evening.
It landed in the Barn Road car park which is run by Norwich City Council and like any driver, the pilot bought pay and display ticket while he waited for the patient. He even displayed it in the front window of the helicopter.
Police confirmed the man hurt in the stabbing remains in a stable condition in hospital but it is understood he does not want to make a formal complaint.
Co-Op employee Robert Kemp, 33, was on shift when the stabbing happened and said he had dropped what he was doing when someone came running into the store saying someone 'had been stabbed.'
'There was this guy leaning up against the post box between Wilko and the Co-Op,' he said. 'There was a large wound on his back. He was conscious and calm but deteriorating quickly.
MORE: Shop workers ran to aid of man stabbed in daylight outside Co-Op on Dereham Road in Norwich
'I came running out immediately and put pressure on the wound, just trying to keep him talking.
'One of my colleagues was there calling the ambulance service and the police, and I just kept pressure on until the paramedics arrived.
Mr Kemp said when he handed the patient over to the paramedic the wound appeared to be 'around seven or eight inches'
James Wright, leader of the Lib Dems at Norwich City Council, was passing the scene at the time and said there had been 'multiple police cars' on Dereham Road.
'The air ambulance was circling and landed in the Barn Road car park,' he said. 'There is a post box just outside the Co-Op and there was a chair there the police were washing down.'
A spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service Trust said: 'We received a call yesterday at 6.08pm to reports of an incident on Dereham Road in Norwich.
'We dispatched an ambulance crew and air ambulance from the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) charity and treated a man, believed to be in his late teens, for a back and leg injury before taking him to hospital via land ambulance for further care.'
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