THE Rotary Club of Launceston enjoyed an interesting and enjoyable visit to the Cornwall Air Ambulance near Newquay airport.

They were met and warmly welcomed by Dave and Gemma, who organise and conduct such tours, and then passed through a vigorous security check before being taken to their showroom for a power-point presentation.

Dave informed them that Cornwall was the first county to have an air ambulance. This was in 1987, and since then they have been on 26,250 missions with 774 missions in 2016 alone. They are on duty 12 hours a day for 365 days each year and work with three helicopters. The crew consists of the pilot and two paramedics and it takes just three minutes to take off.

Finance is a big problem as they receive no funding at all from government. It costs them about £3-million per annum to run the air ambulance and they rely on the generous funding from the public by visits like Launceston Rotary Club’s, arrangements like monies left to them in people’s wills and general donations. Rotarian Dennis Howson said: “Without such gifts life and work would become very difficult. But what would we do without them? The mission statistics speak for themselves and over the years they have saved hundreds of lives. Their power and speed is essential in many cases, especially when we are surrounded by the sea. They really deserve to be supported.”