In April last year my Dad went out kayaking on a local river, much as he has done for years. When he fell into the water, he got back in the boat and carried on, much as he always has done before. Only this time, he fell in again. This was what almost killed him.

Dad made it back to the boat house with the help of a friend before he stopped breathing, at which point his friend immediately started CPR and flagged a passer-by to call for an ambulance. At this stage, his core body temperature was just 23 degrees Celsius. When the paramedics arrived, Dad's heart stopped too and the decision was made to send an air ambulance. 

KSS Air Ambulance took him directly to King's College Hospital in London where they fitted him up to an ECMO machine. This essentially performed the function of his heart and allowed the doctors to gradually raise is body temperature. It was approximately four hours before his heart started beating again. 

The treatment Dad received at Kings was exceptional, and they managed to bring him back to us just two days later. Remarkably, he quickly made a full recovery, astounding the doctors. However, he could not have received this treatment without first being treated by the paramedics with KSS Air Ambulance and without the speedy transportation to one of the best trauma hospitals in the world. Without them, this chain of survival would have failed. Without them, my Dad wouldn't have lived. He certainly wouldn't have made a full recovery.

I intend to run the Edinburgh Half Marathon this May, a little over a year after that horrible phone call. I've never run this far in my life and before last April had only barely managed a 5k once. I'm hoping to raise a little money in thanks for the work of KSS Air Ambulance so that others might receive a similar gift as we have.

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