Mel's Story

The last thing Mel remembers before entering a world of fear and pain was the front of a large black truck bearing down on their small hatchback car.

“It had started out such a lovely day,” she said. “My husband Simon and I were heading off to climb Ben Lomond and looking forward to a day in the hills.”

On a sharp bend just short of the Ben Lomond car park, however, a large pick-up truck on the wrong side of the road concertinaed the couple’s vehicle and left Mel’s life in serious danger.

As emergency services raced to the scene, Mel sat in the front passenger seat unable to move yet aware she had sustained serious injuries.

‘People at the scene pulled me from the wreckage – afraid it might catch fire,” she recalled. “I couldn’t breathe properly or move. They laid me on the ground and I remember thinking – this is it. It all ends here.”

Miraculously, Simon walked free of the wreckage unharmed but Mel was not so fortunate.

“There were voices all around me, asking my name, telling me an air ambulance was on its way. I didn’t think I was going to make it at that stage but I had a real sense of calm – a sense of the inevitable.”

When Mel next opened her eyes it was to see a red suit beside her and a Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance paramedic taking charge.

“SCAA’s paramedics were amazing – so calm and reassuring,” she said. “I felt I was in safe hands.

“I heard them saying they had to get me over a hedge and I was aware of being lifted over it and placed in the helicopter. “SCAA paramedics never left my side – they were something professional and soothing to cling on to.

“I began to have hope – thanks to these guys I might just make it.”

A 13-minute flight later and Mel was safely delivered to the Major Trauma Centre at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where they discovered she had broken her back in two places, had seven broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a shattered right knee and a broken right ankle – all requiring major surgery.

It took Mel a year to recover sufficiently to go back to work and almost a year to the day from her accident, she was fit enough to climb another mountain.

“SCAA helped save my life when we crashed that day,” said Mel. “When I saw that black truck filling the road in front of us there was no time to react – just a horrible, gut-wrenching sense of the inevitable.

“SCAA came at the darkest of times for me and made a truly awful situation so much better with their professionalism, expertise, speed and calming reassurance.

“They helped me fight – they brought me hope while carrying out their job spectacularly well..

“That amazing crew wrapped me in a sense of – ‘we’ve got you, we’ll get you through this, you’re going to be OK’.

“Now I understand how the charity works I realise what a privilege it was to have them attend me,” added Mel.

“Every time I see them flying now I wonder what sort of miracle they’re off to perform? They’re just amazing.”