On 23 September 2021 I was doing a bit of voluntary work at Margate Football Club, putting up some fascias to protect the hoardings above the goal.
After a couple of hours I decided to pack up as it was getting a bit busy in the ground. I swept up, and got my tools together to put in the van. Then I looked up and saw my little impact screwdriver on the roof.
I quickly climbed the ladder to retrieve it. I can remember putting my feet on the first two or three rungs, but I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in hospital three days later trying to work out why I was there. Wendy, my wife, told me I’d come off my ladder and been transported to London by Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS).
No one knows exactly what happened or how far I fell but we think it was about 5 metres. One of the hooks on the ladder that holds it up had sheared off, which may have caused the fall.
I lost a finger and broke my hip, pelvis, and femur, which had to have a rod inserted through it to hold it all together. I also had broken ribs, a punctured lung and five breaks in my back.
After I was discharged from King’s I went to the amputee centre at Medway Hospital and that was the first time I heard the phrase `life changing injuries’, which is quite a big thing.
Although I’ve lost my ring finger, I’m now back at work. I was worried how I would cope but I’ve had a lot of help from my son and his mate who are both carpenters. I’m slower than I used to be, and my stamina feels non-existent at times. I now rely heavily on others and believe I always will.
I work on extensions and putting in garden rooms and I’m inundated with work, but I tell clients that I’ll work for five hours solid each day, and they get as much from me in that time as they’ll get from some builders in eight or nine hours.
Andy’s wife Wendy recalls the phonecall that alerted her to what had happened.
Someone answered the phone and said Andy had been in an accident.
Initially I thought it was one of his friends playing a bit of a sick joke but when he told me Andy was all right, I asked them to find out what hospital he was going to so that I could meet him there.
I heard him go over with Andy’s phone and ask which hospital he was going to. Somebody said ‘we’re a bit busy right now, mate, we don’t quite know yet’.
When I arrived at the ground, someone took me to where Andy was laying on the terraces and I could see people in green. They were wearing masks because we were in COVID times.
After seeing Andy I needed to get some air and as we moved away, I looked down on the ground and saw a gold ring. It was squashed and covered in blood. I knew it was Andy’s but at the time I didn’t know how badly his finger had been damaged, so I didn’t stop and think about how it had got there.
Because of his hand they decided to take him to the Major Trauma Centre at King’s College Hospital in London. They said the KSS helicopter was currently refuelling at Rochester and that it would meet us at The Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate.
Before they took off for King’s Malcolm, the doctor from KSS, explained what was happening and I was able to say goodbye to Andy.
When I got to King’s someone warned me that Andy would be attached to machines and it might not look very nice. As we got round the corner I heard his nurse saying ‘Andrew, I think your wife’s arrived’. He was sitting up in bed looking amazing.
HEMS Paramedic Ben Macauley worked alongside Dr Malcolm Russell as part of the KSS team that cared for Andy
Andy needed to be taken to a Major Trauma Centre and, because he was in Kent, that meant flying him to King’s College Hospital in London.
We were particularly concerned with Andy as he had broken multiple bones including his pelvis, a number of ribs and a thigh bone – a very serious collection of injuries. Had we taken him by road, this would have meant a journey of around 90 minutes. By flying, we were able to bring this down to under 30 minutes.
On the way to London, we monitored Andy’s condition very closely and gave him intravenous drugs to manage his pain and keep him comfortable and stable. Once we’d landed at King’s College Hospital we took Andy down to the Emergency Department and handed him over the waiting trauma team. At this point they took over his care.
It’s great to have met Andy and Wendy and see, despite the challenges he’s faced, what a good recovery he has made and continues to make. The fundraising he’s been doing is incredible.”
Andy and his family have become keen supporters of KSS
It’s become really important to me to raise money for this amazing charity because they helped save my life.
We did a sponsored walk, covering the 32-mile Viking Coastal Trail around the Isle of Thanet in three days. We wanted to raise £600 but by the end we had got £5,000. With bake sales and quiz nights it kept adding up and by the time we presented the cheque in front of the helicopter at Redhill it was just short of £14,000. I was absolutely chuffed to bits.
KSS has become a really important part of our lives and we have stayed in touch with the Patient and Family Aftercare team and the Fundraising Team.
Everyone from KSS has helped us and it means a lot. The 20 minutes it took to get to King’s made all the difference for me, and meeting Ben the Paramedic who cared for me was another piece of the jigsaw.
