Daniel found love was in the air after he was rescued by Air Ambulance

Sep 9 2009 Buckinghamshire Advertiser

Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance lifts more than 1,200 injured people to hospital in a year at a cost of £2million, which comes entirely from donations. POLLY MANSER spoke to Daniel Miller, rescued after an horrific motorbike accident in May, and his mother Pat, who has now become a fundraiser for the charity

DANIEL Miller was heading home to Chesham from work on May 6. It was 5pm and the 23-year-old had finished a day's work strimming grass verges for Buckinghamshire County Council contractor ISS Waterers, and was on the A413 thinking about the evening ahead.

In the space of a few seconds, he had crashed into one car and then another, and ended up on the tarmac feeling woozy and with people surrounding him asking if he was all right.

He said: "I wasn't really in pain, but I had landed on my elbow, and I could feel that underneath me, and apparently my leg had been twisted up behind my back as well."

Within 10 minutes the Chiltern Air Ambulance was on the scene.

Daniel said: "They gave me morphine, straightened my leg, put me on a stretcher and took me to hospital."

Within 10 minutes, he was being treated at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, a journey which would have taken more than an hour by road. His femur was broken in four places, and he had a ruptured bladder, yet within six days he was home and walking on crutches.

And three months later, although still not able to work, he is able to walk with one crutch, and unaided when indoors.

Daniel said: "I'd like to say thank you to the air ambulance, they did a great job."

But this is a story with a romantic twist. The traumatic experience brought Daniel and his new girlfriend, Gemma Jackson, closer, and within a month of leaving hospital, he had moved out of the family home at Lansdowne Road, Chesham, to set up home with her. They plan to marry on June 5 next year.

Daniel's mother, Pat Miller, said: "It's a real love story. They haven't known each other very long, only since February, but this accident has brought them closer together and now I'm gaining a daughter. It's lovely."

Mrs Miller described the moment she found out Daniel was injured. "His boss rang me and said 'Daniel's had an accident'," she said. "He said he didn't know any more and he had to go. It was every parent's worst nightmare."

Mrs Miller and her husband Steve, who were celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary that day, rushed to the scene to find the road closed and to be told by police that they could not disclose the nature of their son's injuries,

It took us over an hour to get there, and all that way we didn't know what had happened."

She is so grateful for the prompt treatment her son received that day, that she has joined the small army of volunteers who between them raise more than £2m each year to fund the service. She has organised a karaoke evening at the Gamekeepers Lodge pub in Bellingdon Road, Chesham, on

October 31.

Hazeldene Farm, in Chesham, on Sunday, where the helicopter was on display. Proceeds from the day's events are to be donated to the charity. They and Dr Graham Stiff chatted to members of the public about the important work the team does.

The air ambulance attends to about four accidents each day in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire. It is called either to serious accidents, when it is crucial that the victim arrives at hospital swiftly, or when the patient is in an inaccessible location. In Daniel's case, he needed to go to the largest major trauma unit.

Based at RAF Benson, outside Wallingford, Oxfordshire, it is manned on a rota by a team of pilots and paramedics, who are paid, and a team of six doctors, both GPs and consultants, who are not paid and who volunteer about two days per month. The only funding it receives is the

salaries of the paramedics, who are employed by the NHS. [25cf] For more information about the Chiltern Air Ambulance, visit www.tvacaa.org. If you can donate a star prize to Mrs Miller's fundraising event, please call 07858 960 195.