Get frying to keep our air ambulance flying

Today (Wednesday), the local Air Ambulance are celebrating their 21st birthday and will be having a birthday party at their RAF Waddington base. Slightly unusually, they will be swapping cakes for fry-ups, and are asking the general public to do the same and help save a life.

To show support, the charity are asking the public to snap selfies of themselves enjoying a fry-up and uploading it to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with the hastag: #flytofry. They are also suggesting, if supporters would like to go that extra mile to help save a life, they could get sponsored to do something fun, silly or bizarre. For example, cooking a fry up for family or friends; hosting a Come Dine With Me, or getting ‘their GaGa on’ and wearing their fry up to work or school!

And why a fry up and not a cake? Well, it’s all down to one of the doctors who flies with the crew. Every day of the year the Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance crew start their shift at 6.30am by heading to the helipad to inspect the ambucopter. Having checked all is safe and ready for the day’s life-saving flights, they then head back to the base for their briefing. Once a week however, courtesy of Doctor Dave, the crew starts their day with a Great British fry up.

Today the charity team are joined by BBC Radio Lincolnshire to broadcast the celebrations all morning at RAF Waddington, joined by many guests including the crew, charity team, East Midlands Ambulance Service colleagues and previously airlifted patients.

ISS Defence Catering at RAF Waddington will be providing fry-ups and donating all profits to the charity.

All information on the day is at www.ambucopter.org.uk/frytofly. The charity’s social media sites are Facebook: /Ambucopter, Twitter: @LNAACT and Instagram: LNNACT.

CEO Peter Aldrick said: “This year is a very special year for us and so we wanted to celebrate it in a way that represents the true camaraderie and team spirit we have. The day will be a great day for us as it was back in 1994 when we first airlifted a patient. We’re looking forward to us all getting together and celebrating a service that has flown over 16,000 missions and saved thousands of lives. We have other events planned throughout this 21st year and we hope people will support us in those too.”