The mother of a boy from west Norfolk who has an unstable heart has praised a service which safely took her son between hospitals when he needed treatment.
Harry Younge, from Wiggenhall St Germans, was 11 years old when he received two life-saving interventions from the Children's Air Ambulance (TCAA) at the height of the pandemic.
He collapsed after a family holiday at the age of nine. It was discovered that he had a heart murmur and hypertrophic cardio myopathy. His condition was monitored at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London for two and a half years.
Last year, Harry was airlifted between the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn and GOSH for treatment as doctors decided it was safer to make the journey by air due to his unstable heart.
On both occasions he could have gone into cardiac arrest or had an arrhythmia.
It took around 39 minutes to transfer Harry from King’s Lynn to Regents Park, where a land ambulance was waiting to take him to hospital. This is compared to a road journey of 102 miles which would take around two hours and 20 minutes.
His mum Nina said: "Despite the fact he was getting to GOSH as quickly as possible with a team of highly skilled people it was still a very traumatic situation to be in and I was terrified.”
Since the two transfers in May and June, Harry, now 13, has had a heart transplant and is back at home.
His mum wants to highlight the vital service the charity operates and is urging people to support it.
She added: “If you are in a life-threatening situation with your child, the Children’s Air Ambulance and the CATS team are who you want with you at that moment. We are very lucky to have the Children’s Air Ambulance.
"We all think that these things happen to someone else, you don’t imagine your child needing to be airlifted to hospital, but when suddenly you are in that situation, and time is of the utmost importance, you quickly realise how important it is that we have the Children’s Air Ambulance.
"We will forever be grateful to them."
The charity launched a campaign on Wednesday highlighting its work. To support it, visit www.childrensairambulance.org.uk or call 0300 3045 999.
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