Grateful daughter's marathon charity run

THE Great North Air Ambulance Service has been supported by the daughter of a man who received a blood transfusion outside of hospital after a serious crash.

- By Owen Younger

Jill Dempster, 36, tackled her first ever marathon in aid of the charity, raising more than £1,700 to support the work the organisation does.

She chose to fundraise for GNAAS as part of the event in Loch Rannoch, Scotland in October, her first marathon, after her dad John McNeil received urgent help from the charity in January 2015.

John, aged 58 at the time, was involved in a serious incident on the A1 at Berwick when his work van collided with an oncoming lorry.

He sustained multiple severe fractures, including his collar bone, hip socket, both femurs, sternum and vertebrae, as well as collapsed lungs, lacerations to his scalp and liver, and a hematoma near his right kidney. When the GNAAS critical care team arrived, they put John into a medically-induced coma and gave him a blood transfusion.