Thank you for helping us to reach our original goal and funding one crew helmet costing £1750! We have increased our goal to fund two helmets through our Virtual Bucket Collection.

Our patients need help fast. Often the best way to reach them is with our helicopter. To be able to stay safe and communicate in the air, our crew need specialist, bespoke helmets. Without helmets they would have to attend these incidents in one of our Critical Care Cars. This could add up to 45 minutes to their journey, and many patients could be missing essential critical care time. Access to helmets allows our crew to be there for people quickly, when they need it most.

Donate to our Virtual Collection Bucket by clicking the blue 'Give Now' button or set up your own Virtual Bucket by clicking the orange ''Start fundraising' button, and help raise funds for this essential piece of equipment for your local air ambulance crew.

Having safe helmets available means our crew have been able to attend patients like Michelle from Gloucestershire. Michelle, 21, had fallen off her horse and was in need of an ambulance.

Michelle and her sister Rachel had been riding in a field behind their house, when Michelle took what seemed like a low impact fall when sat stationary on her horse. Rachel thought she had broken her arm, it wasn't until she reached her sister that she realised Michelle was unconscious.

Whilst on the phone to 999, Michelle's breathing kept stopping and starting. Every time her dad, Richard, went to start CPR, Michelle would wake again, getting increasingly agitated each time. Her symptoms suggested she could have a brain injury, and so our Critical Care Team attended in the helicopter, making helmets essential to attend quickly.

The Critical Care Team intubated Michelle, sedating her at the scene and taking over her breathing. Now stabilised, she was able to travel in a land ambulance to Southmead Hospital. Michelle had a CT scan, and was taken down to theatre where she needed to have a monitor put into her brain to measure any swelling she had suffered from the fall. Luckily, Michelle's brain hadn't swollen but her heart rate kept dropping very low and so she was being closely monitored.

A week later, Michelle started opening her eyes, and after 2 weeks she started to come round. After three weeks in hospital, Michelle travelled home with her family.

Michelle is now back riding at home on the farm, taking it easy but doing what she loves. Having access to helmets allowed our specialist crew to get to the scene quickly and make a positive difference to Michelle.

Support our Virtual Bucket Collection by clicking 'Give Now' or by setting up your own bucket by clicking the orange 'Start Fundraising' button. Your support will help us fund at least one new crew helmet - an essential piece of kit to help save the lives of people like Michelle.

*Any donations we receive in excess of funding one crew helmet will be used to fund additional crew helmets, service existing helmets and to upgrade them if needed.