This week The Kilted Coaches had the pleasure of meeting up with, Mike Beale, from Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance to chat about the amazing work that they do and what everyone can do to help them when they’re out exploring Scotland with our Proclaimers Challenge. All through the month of September we will be wearing out kilts EVERY DAY to help raise funds for this outstanding charity.
Head on over to https://youtu.be/9Pkp9uI683M to watch our video and see all of the exciting things that we chatted about. There’s even a special guest appearance from a Hollywood star!!
A little bit about Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance;
” Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) was formed in 2012 and launched our helicopter air ambulance in May 2013 to assist the Scottish Air Ambulance Service (SAAS) to deliver front-line care to time-critical emergencies across Scotland. SCAA provides a fully equipped medical helicopter that can be deployed from its central base at Perth Airport to incidents across the length and breadth of Scotland.
Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance works in close cooperation with the Scottish Ambulance Service who provide the paramedic staff that crew the helicopter. SAS tasks the SCAA helicopter across Scotland through their Ambulance Control Centres.
Our charity is not supported by any statutory funding and the service is funded solely by donations from private individuals, companies and community trusts.”
So, we’re here in Scone today at the Scottish charity Air Ambulance,Mike Beale, here has kindly taken some moments to discuss with us a little bit about the helicopter itself. Tell us a little bit about the charity and what it’s achieve so far.
Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance was founded in 2013, we worked on it for a few years prior to that and the whole reason for us being here is to save time and to save lives. Obviously the helicopter can fly at 150 miles per hour in a straight line and so the distances involved may be big but the time to get to a patient and to get them to hospital is short.
Very good. So really we’re encouraging people to get out and about and to be a bit more physically active y’know one of our main mottos is “Who needs a gym when you’ve got Scotland?” so what can people do to make sure that they stay safe and hopefully not need the ambulance.
So, Mike, we’re encouraging people to get out and about and use Scotland as your means of activity. What can people do to make themselves safe?
Well there are two particular things that would help us, firstly for those people that are out and about to know exactly where they are and where they’re going, so many of our calls give an incorrect location on the 999 call and so to have a better awareness of exactly where they are would be a great help and secondly and this sounds quite simple but wearing clothing that can be seen. Now we have had examples of people who have been wearing camouflage gear for example and they’ve had to take it off in order to be seen from the helicopter. So.
They just had all their clothes off.
Well quite a lot of their clothes. So, a much better idea of their location and the key points on their routes so if they know for example four or five six figure grid references of key points on their routes that they can remember or have on a piece of paper in their pocket and to wear clothing that is recognisable from the air.
So, a bit of map reading and wear sensible clothing nice and bright.
Absolutely.
Perfect.
So, we grew up watching action movies.
We like Arnie. We like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And there’s a particular movie which we’re both very fond of which is Predator.
Yeah.
And in Predator there’s a line in it and it’s stuck with us and that’s why we’re here today really.
Because it’s “Give to the chopper”
He shouts “Go on run give to the chopper” So y’know we’re going to chopper.
Yeah, we’ll give to that chopper.
Was the line get to the chopper?
We’re pretty sure it’s give to the chopper
Give to the chopper? Sounds good to me.
Yeah, we’ll roll with that
So, we want to raise as much money as we can so we’re going to do a big charity event this September.
Yes, but we’re not calling it September we’re calling it, Kiltember.
Kiltember.
Because, we’re The Kilted Coaches.
Everything we do kilted
Exactly, so Kiltember, we’re going to wear our kilt for the full month every single day for a full month
And we’re going to challenge you to do what you can either wear it for a full day, full week or go for the full month raise money for a good cause.
Absolutely.
So check the website for more details.
RUN GO GIVE TO THE CHOPPER