Anna’s Story

18 year old Anna Spekini was recovering from a road traffic collision when she had a medical emergency in April 2017. 11 days prior to our air ambulance being called out, Anna and her partner were driving home when she lost control of the car.

Anna recalls: “The car went into a spin and then slipped. After being cut out of the car by the fire brigade, I was transported to Addenbrooke’s where I was treated for several injuries including a liver laceration.”

Anna had four blood transfusions and was discharged nine days later.

After a few days of relaxing at home, she had a sudden “agonising” stomach pain. Community First Responders arrived to assess Anna’s condition. When she began vomiting blood clots – a sign of severe internal bleeding – Essex & Herts Air Ambulance was dispatched.

Pre-hospital Care Doctor Ainsley Heyworth and Critical Care Paramedic Adam Carr came to Anna’s aid, administering strong drugs to ease her pain.

“I remember Adam talking to me and holding my hand the whole way there to calm me down. The Critical Care Team did an amazing job and I feel very, very lucky that they were there to help.”

At Addenbrooke’s Anna was taken in for a CT scan and emergency keyhole surgery. One of the main arteries in her groin had burst due to the liver laceration from her accident 11 days prior, and she was fitted with a stent.

Anna and her family came to meet Adam Carr at our North Weald Airbase. Having been the Critical Care Paramedic on the day of Anna’s accident, he was delighted to see her progress:

“It’s nice to see Anna looking so well after the last time I saw her! Her case was quite unusual for us, and she was clearly very unwell when we got to her. We worked as quickly as possible to get her back to Addenbrooke’s, where we knew she would have the best care. It’s been great to meet her again and discuss her incident, as well as sharing more about what we do as a charity.”