Devon Air Ambulance needs new HQ, says founder

Devon's Air Ambulance founder has said it is crucial for the charity to have a new headquarters and air base.

Ann Ralli said: "We not only have to keep up to date but we have to go ahead of innovations and medical things and technology."

She founded the charity in 1992 after her son Ceri Thomas died in a road accident and a surgeon told her an air ambulance might have helped save him.

New chief executive Greg Allen told BBC Devon: "We are focused on a new air base, head office, academy and visitors' centre, which we are in the process of designing and developing, which will enable us to improve the service that we can deliver."

Ms Ralli said it was important to have the 168 staff under one roof as they were currently based at both Pinhoe and Exeter Airport.

Of the air ambulance service, she says people "love it because it's ours, it's theirs, it's Devon's".

Mr Allen said Devon had its challenges for the emergency services, with 80% of the county's road network graded as unclassified roads.

"We need to have the best, most nimble, services to be able to get to people quickly."

Ms Ralli added the charity meant "a tremendous amount" to her.

"I've had friends who've had their lives saved by the service here. My son wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make a difference."

She said when her son Ceri Thomas had the accident in 1986, "it was hard for the first responders to get there in time".

"So, by the time they got there and got him into hospital, "this 'golden hour' that doctors talk about where you need life saving treatment had pretty well gone".

She says she decided to change that for others, and rallied people to support her to get the county its own air ambulance service. She says in the early days, they made their own posters.

At the time, she says she had support from existing ambulance pilots, who landed air ambulances in her garden in Sidbury and six other places, to demonstrate what could happen to help casualties if air ambulances were available.

"I went anywhere in Devon, and talked to anyone who would have me," she said.

Farmers were her biggest supporters, she said, and the charity had to raise £500,000 to put an air ambulance in the air for four days a week.

"I hoped it would grow and grow," she said, adding that it eventually became the service it is today, "thanks to the people of Devon who provided the groundswell of the funds".

Mr Allen added that "what she's achieved" by setting up the charity had been "so impactful over the years".

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