We’re there for you 365 days a year – including Christmas and New Year. For our crew of doctors, dispatchers, pilots and paramedics, just because it’s Christmas, it doesn’t mean we’re not going to be there for you.

One of those patients last Christmas was 61-year-old Helen Mclaren from Gosport.

A Life Saved

On Boxing Day 2022, grandmother of six Helen returned home from her manager’s shift at the local shop – both her Christmas and life were about to be flipped upside down.

A near-fatal stabbing from her husband at the time left her “screaming and covered in blood” and requiring emergency treatment from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance.

Helen Mclaren, 61, and her husband Ray, 63, were at their home in Gosport when a “discussion about a Christmas card” led to Ray brandishing a kitchen knife from the dishwasher.

Unaware of his intentions to attack her, Helen thought Ray was going to harm himself.

“I told him he wouldn’t see the children and grandchildren again. ‘It’s not me that’s not going to see them again’ he said. ‘It’s you.’”

Critical injuries

Helen sustained a life-threatening stab wound to her chest, which punctured her heart, as well as to her arm. She was critically ill. We were dispatched to assist our ambulance colleagues who were on scene.

Helen and her daughter Indya last Christmas

Shortly after we arrived, however, Helen rapidly deteriorated and became critically unwell with an unrecordable blood pressure – she was in ‘peri-arrest’ (about to go into a cardiac arrest).

The crew gave her emergency blood and clotting products to keep her alive before taking her to hospital.

Helen was later found to have a pericardial effusion – a buildup of extra fluid in the space around the heart – confirming that the stab wound had penetrated the heart.

Helen was discharged home to her daughters two weeks later.

“My girls were told they didn’t know whether they could save me or not. I was distraught by that,” she said. “What must they have been going through? Even now we still can’t believe it happened.”

Helen’s daughter, Indya, added: “Without the care from the Air Ambulance crew, she wouldn’t be here now.”

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