New air ambulance helps save more lives

They call this their flying Accident and Emergency Department, it's not just about moving patients more quickly to hospital, it can save lives in the air too.

In the last year the new Great Western Air Ambulance has attended more than one thousand six hundred emergencies in the West, 270 more than last year.

Patients like Dan Coles, who was cycling down the Mendips in March last year when he hurtled into a dry stone wall.

The 36 year old doesn't remember much about the accident but the force left him with a bleed on his brain, a broke his pelvis, shoulder, wrist and thumb.

Dan is back now his feet and has since ran the Bristol to Bath marathon to raise money for the charity who saved his life.

But the new flying machine is an expensive beast, and relies on fundraising and donations.

The work of the new helicopter is by far exceeding what it's older sibling used to do.

It's faster and powerful enough to land on the heli-pad at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, and The Gloucestershire Royal - which saves vital minutes transferring patients.

Watch the full report below: