This blog has been written for the children from All Hallows Preparatory School, so they can track the work done by The Flying Crane — a brand new BMW R1200RT blood bike that the school presented to Freewheelers EVS on July 2nd, 2010.
While The Flying Crane is attending fundraising events, or even making deliveries, we will collect photographs and post them the dedicated Flying Crane Gallery.
If you have any comments or questions about the bike or the charity, then please click the "add new comment" or "comments" link. And don't forget, if you see The Flying Crane while you are out and about, please tell the school and you could win a special Freewheelers enamel badge!
Jumbled up houses and a very long Saturday
Wednesday, 11 April 2012 18:52
West Ashton near Trowbridge is a confusing place. One of the 4 calls I had on Friday night was to pick up a large package of medication from the Royal United Hospital in Bath, and deliver it to a patient's home in West Ashton. The Flying Crane's satnav got me to the general area, but it wasn't outside number 23 where I needed to be. I had a look round & discovered that the houses weren't in the usual order.
Traditionally you find odd numbers on one side of the road, and even numbers on the other. This road was like that in places, but also had sequential numbers on the same side in other places. Overall nothing seemed to be in the right order, and to make matters worse some of the houses had names instead of numbers. I found number 22 eventually, and thought 23 was bound to be next door. It wasn't, it was 22a. Ok I thought, the next one will be 23. It wasn't, it was 22b. After that came 22c & 22d, and then the next one was 17! If I had any hair I would have torn it out. I did get to number 23 in the end, but it took me another 15 minutes of tramping up & down driveways to find it. Thankfully the other 3 calls I had were all completed more easily, and I got home around midnight.
The first call on Saturday came in at 1:00am and was to meet up with a rider from another blood-bike group called SERV. I needed to get to Warminster at 2:30am to collect a box of blood samples from him and take it to the NHS blood bank in Filton. Unfortunately the other rider was late, but as he had come all the way from Portsmouth I could hardly complain. He'd been woken up a lot earlier than I had! I got back to bed about 4:40am after completing this call, and managed to get a few hours sleep before the phone started ringing again.
The last call of the day was another handover of blood samples with SERV at Warminster, destined for the blood bank at Filton once again. This call wasn't too late in the evening and I got home around midnight.
In between the 2 Warminster calls, I had 10 others covering the usual hospitals on the Flying Crane's patch around the Bath area. One of these was to pick up a special machine called a nebuliser, which was needed to help someone with breathing problems. I rode 280 miles completing these 12 calls, so overall Saturday felt like a very long day.
Petrol was hard to find at times due to the fact that most people seemed to be convinced that it was about to run out. Several petrol stations I passed on Saturday afternoon had sold out of unleaded, but thankfully one very helpful filling station manager unlocked a pump just for me so I could top up the Flying Crane's tank. What a nice chap!
Sunday was much quieter, as I only had 2 calls all day. This gave me time to do a little research on our website and I discovered that in 2011 the Freewheelers completed 3,400 calls, which we believe saved the NHS around £150,000. The Flying Crane is one of 3 operational bikes we use, and was probably used to complete around 1,000 of those calls allowing for time off the road for maintenance and servicing etc. £150,000 divided by 3,400 calls is around £44 per call cost saving to the NHS. 1,000 x 44 = £44,000 that can be put down to the Flying Crane. That is a very substantial amount of cost savings which will benefit everyone who uses the NHS – which is all of us!
Calls completed 19
Miles ridden 437
Handovers with other blood bike groups 2
Number of times I want to go back to West Ashton 0
Simon is usually on duty for Freewheelers during the weekend but recently he did a week-nights shift. This is a picture of Simon when he is on duty overnight. Can you spot how many things are in the picture to do with night-time and how many to do with the Freewheelers service?
Click the picture to see a larger version.
The answers to the previous blog on “Where has Simon been?” are: A=Southmead Hospital, B=Chippenham, C=Trowbridge, D=Paulton, E=RUH,Bath, F=Chippenham, G=St. Martin’s,Bath, H=Warminster, I=Dorothy House Hospice, J=RUH,Bath, K=no hospital here (trick one), L=Frome, M=St. Martin’s,Bath, N=RUH,Bath and O=The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (formerly known as the Mineral Hospital). How many did you get right?
On the weekend beginning Friday November 18th, 2011, Simon rode 400 miles on duty for Freewheelers. He recorded his routes on the Satellite Navigation System and they are shown in this blog. The differences in the routes demonstrate how variable the rides can be. 15 of the hospitals Simon visited have been marked on the routes (shown as A to O). How many can you identify? The answers will be given in a future blog entry, good luck!
Click the images below to blow them up to a bigger size.
Freewheelers volunteer rider Paul recently had The Flying Crane and got called out on a late night run that saw the bike pass 40,000 miles - an amazing distance since the bike was presented to us in July 2010. Here is Paul's account of that night.
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Hello my name is Paul Juillerat although most people call me PJ and I’m one of the riders of The Flying Crane! I have been meaning to write this blog since my shift in September but like many of the Freewheelers riders, co-ordinators and fundraisers I have been rather busy with my own work and life - so I apologise for the delay in passing on this piece of news!
During my shift between Monday September 26th of September and Friday September 29thThe Flying Crane passed 40,000 miles! I was hoping to take a photo of the speedometer as it hit the 40k but as it turned out I had a rather busy shift and it wasn’t until I finally got home that I was able to record the event for you.
The Monday shift started normally with my co-ordinator Ken Fryer calling me at just after 7pm with the first run of the evening: a non-urgent pick up of blood samples from the RUH A&E at Bath to go to Southmead Blood sciences building in Bristol. As I was picking up the samples I got a second urgent call to go to meet a rider from Oxford SERV at Swindon Hospital and pick up blood samples to go to Filton Blood Bank for testing – and I had to get there by 8.30pm!
I headed off from the RUH straight away to Swindon intending to do the urgent run to Filton and then on to Southmead with my first batch of samples.
When I arrived at Swindon I was met almost immediately by the rider from Oxford SERV and we made the hand over. I called in the details to the co-ordinator who then informed me that there was another collection from the main reception at Swindon of some pain medication that needed to go to a patient in Chippenham. The patient in Chippenham had been given someone else’s medication and we needed to swap their pain medication for the right ones and then take the swapped tablets to the correct patient at Ashton Keynes! Phew!
The urgent run to Filton took priority but as I was practically outside the entrance of Swindon hospital I picked up the mixed up meds and then headed off to Filton; the drug swap would happen later.
During my run down the M4 from Swindon to Filton I watched as the speedo clicked over the 40k and realised I had no way of capturing the moment for which I am very sorry but I was a little bit busy!
I arrived at Filton and, after negotiating the security gates, delivered the urgent blood samples. I then headed off with the other well-travelled samples to Southmead.
The time was now around 10pm. I headed off once again, this time to Chippenham and a private address in the centre of town. When I finally found the address (thank goodness for the satnav) I was met at the door by a lady who was very pleased to see me as she explained that her husband was in a lot of pain and was extremely grateful to have the right pain meds.
I headed off into the wilds of Wiltshire and in search of another private address at Ashton Keynes. As I crossed the M4 the weather took a sudden change for the worse and it became very foggy (there are a lot of waterways and lakes in that part of the county). I had to slow down dramatically to deal with the conditions and once again the satnav was indispensable as I picked my way through dark, winding country lanes. Finally I arrived at the address and out of the window a hand appeared to receive the packet of medication; once again a young woman was extremely grateful, despite the late hour, to receive her pain medication.
It was now nearly midnight and I headed off towards home in Bath. The fog made the first part of the journey very slow and this wasn’t helped by road works blocking the junction onto the M4 at Chippenham; however I managed to get home with a slight detour to fill up with petrol. I arrived home at around 1am and drank a much-needed cup of tea!
Before I turned in for the night I remembered to take a photo of the mileage for you, and I say thank you for supplying a bike that carried me and my much-needed packages for 175 miles safely all night.
The rest of the shift went by rather more sedately and I managed to get to bed before midnight the rest of the week.
On Friday we had a camera crew making a short presentation video of the Flying Crane. This is as a result of a nomination for the Heart of Somerset Awards run by Burnham and Bridgewater Times, Wells Journal, Shepton Mallet Journal, Central Somerset Gazette and the Cheddar Valley Gazette.
Andy had a camera strapped to his motorcycle helmet so they could do some live shots on the road, and we even did a bit of filming from another bike. He even got interviewed to tell the viewers what we do.
The Royal United Hospital in Bath was the centre of my world for this shift. 12 of the 16 calls I completed were either picked up from, or delivered to the RUH. In fact I was there so often, I am now on first name terms with one of the chaps in the pathology laboratory. His name is Matt and he’s a nice guy.
Apart from the RUH, I visited the 3 main hospitals in Bristol – Frenchay, Southmead and the BRI, and also the smaller community hospitals in Frome, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Paulton over the weekend. I also went to the Mineral hospital in Bath 3 times, which meant I had to ride through the centre of Bath very carefully to get there. The route to the Min takes you through some very busy shopping streets, where people tend to forget that there might be traffic coming. You have to ride through the streets very slowly & carefully as a lot of people just walk across the road without looking. Next time you’re shopping in the centre of Bath, make sure you look before you cross – you’ll be safer and you might see the Flying Crane go by!
I rode a total of 347 miles during this shift around various hospitals, nursing homes and health centres, and by far the friendliest place I visited was the Maternity ward at Frome hospital. I went over there to pick up some blood samples that needed to go to the RUH pathology lab urgently. When I walked in the nurse said “Thank you so much for coming, we don’t know what we’d do without the Freewheelers” It’s always nice to be appreciated, and feedback like this shows how important the Flying Crane’s work really is. I don’t know whether it was a mother or a baby that needed the tests done, but either way it was important and the Flying Crane helped to get the job done.
The odometer (mileage counter) on the Flying Crane showed that it has done 40,566 miles when I picked it up at the beginning of my shift. I know from checking previous FC blogs that it was given to the Freewheelers on the 1st of July 2010 (about 6 months before I became a Freewheeler), so it has covered about 2,700 miles every month from new. That’s a lot. Some bikes don’t do 2,700 miles in a year!
The internet tells me that the circumference of the earth is about 25,000 miles at the equator, so the total mileage the Flying Crane has covered so far is the same as riding round the world 1.6 times. Like I said that’s a lot, and the Flying Crane is still going strong which is very impressive considering it has been in almost continuous service for well over a year. Those clever engineers at the Bavarian Motor Works certainly know how to build a bike, which is just as well as the Freewheelers bikes very rarely get a rest.
It was very windy at times during my shift and this can make riding tricky, especially if the wind hits you from the side from between 2 buildings. All of a sudden you’re blown sideways, and it can catch you out if you’re not careful. You have to make sure you are not riding too close to any parked cars, or you might get blown in to them. If you are riding past a row of houses and the wind hits you from between each one, it looks like you are weaving from side to side as you go down the road. It can feel a little odd too – almost as if a giant hand is pushing you from side to side as you are going along!
Miles ridden 347 Calls completed 16 Visits to RUH path lab 11 Pedestrians startled near the Mineral hospital 3
This shift on the Flying Crane was Monday to Friday, so it was evenings only. I thought it was going to start off easily. “How busy can a Monday night be” I thought to myself. I was fully expecting to be relaxing in front of the telly with mug of tea and a custard cream by 10 o’clock, but it turns out Monday nights can be very busy indeed.
First I was off to the Royal United Hospital in Bath to pick us some medication, which needed to go to a patient’s home in Wells. After this it was off to Paulton Hospital to pick up a blood sample that had to go to the pathology laboratory at the RUH. So far so good. I thought I was done for the night and went to bed, but the phone rang again at 11:30 and I had to go to the pharmacy at Southmead Hospital & pick up some medication that was needed at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Apparently I wasn’t the only one having a late night. I got to the pharmacy at midnight & the pharmacist was waiting outside with the bag of medication in her hand. She was standing next to a car with the engine running, so I think she was in a hurry to get back to bed!
I saw a fox on the way out of Southmead Hospital. It ran across the road in front of me, but thankfully it was quick. By the time my hand had started pulling the brake lever, it had whizzed past my front wheel & disappeared. Phew!
I was heading home after delivering the medication, and the phone went again. I was sent back to Southmead hospital to pick up a box of fluids that were needed urgently at the intensive care unit at Frenchay Hospital. I got there tired & red eyed at about 1:30am, and was rewarded with big smile from the ward sister who said “thank you ever so much for this, we really appreciate it”. I didn’t feel so tired after that. I finally got back to bed at about 2:00am. Ahhh....
Tuesday night was quieter. The first call was to take some medication from the RUH in Bath to a nursing home a couple of miles away. After that I went to Warminster hospital to pick up a blood sample which had to go to the RUH pathology lab. It wasn’t an urgent call, but it was certainly important. Apparently a blood test was needed to see if the patient would be able to have a blood transfusion the next morning. I was finished by 10:30 and went straight to bed to catch up on some of the sleep I’d missed the night before!
Wednesday night was also quiet. Only 2 calls – the first was taking a blood sample from Paulton hospital to the RUH, and the other was taking some medication from the RUH to St Martin’s hospital which is about 3 miles away from the RUH. I was back home & putting my feet up by 10 o’clock. Easy peasy!
Thursday night started off quietly, but ended up being another late finish. I only had 2 calls, but the second one came in at midnight. The first call was a nice easy ride from the RUH in Bath to pick up some medication & take it to a nursing home in Radstock. The second call was to pick up a blood sample from Callington Road hospital in Bristol and take it to the pathology lab at the BRI. I saw another fox on the way home. I was stopped at some traffic lights & it walked calmly across the road in front of me. It was almost as though it had been waiting for the lights to change so it could cross!
I got home about 1:00am, and that was the end of my shift. The Flying Crane had performed perfectly, and was a pleasure to ride.
Miles ridden 306 Calls completed 10 Foxes seen 2 Big smiles from nurses 1
Last weekend was my first proper shift on the Flying Crane – and it started on a different bike. The Flying Crane (aka the East bike) was in the workshop for a new back tyre, so I had the West bike instead. This is another BMW R1200RT.
When I joined the Freewheelers in January this year, I was allocated to the North bike as this fitted in with where I live. The North bike mostly serves the Bristol Hospitals, but I did an odd weekend shift on the Flying Crane a few months ago to fill in for someone else and really enjoyed it. I grew up in Wiltshire & it was good to have a ride round all the towns I used to visit on my moped (closely followed by a cloud of smelly blue smoke) in my youth. I decided I had to switch to the East bike!
The bike was delivered to me at 6:00pm. I got busy with all the necessary mechanical & electrical checks to make sure everything was working & the bike was safe to ride, and completed my online handover form confirming everything was ok.
It didn’t take long for the phone to ring with my first job, and I was off to Trowbridge hospital to pick up a blood sample that needed to be taken to the pathology laboratory at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. While I was in Trowbridge, the phone went again & I was sent to Frome hospital to pick a blood sample from there too. This one also needed to go to the RUH. After dropping both samples off, I headed home wondering why the North and West bikes haven’t got proper names like the Flying Crane. Perhaps I should suggest some. Racing Robin? Prancing Porpoise? Hopping Hedgehog? On second thoughts, perhaps I should leave naming things to other people. I don’t seem to be much good at it.
Saturday started off at the Bristol Bike show at St.Nicholas market in Bristol. Several of my fellow Freewheelers were there to promote the good work we do, and also give people the opportunity to donate some money to help us keep the blood bikes running. Apparently we collected about £400. Perhaps someone who is good at maths can work out how many litres of petrol we can buy with that – one litre is about £1.35 at the moment.
I wasn’t there long before the phone rang, and I was off to the RUH in Bath to pick up some medication for a patient who was in Chippenham hospital. When I got to Chippenham, I had to pick up 2 blood samples from a different ward that needed to go to the RUH. I also needed to come back to the RUH via Riverside Health Centre in Bath who also needed some blood samples to be taken to the RUH. This was a BIG bag of samples about the size of a big bag of popcorn!
After this the Flying Crane was ready to be picked up, so I swapped the bikes over at the BMW dealer. The Flying Crane was ready for take-off!
Saturday afternoon was more of the same. I visited the RUH twice more, Chippenham hospital again to drop something off and then pick up something that had to come back to the RUH again, and I also visited Southmead hospital in Bristol. I finished about 5:30pm.
Sunday started quite late as I didn’t get any calls until about 11:00am. I’ve had calls at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning before, so it was nice to have a lie in. I was soon off to Chippenham hospital again to pick up blood samples from 2 different wards, which had to go to the RUH in Bath. After dropping off at the RUH, I was sent to Shepton Mallet hospital to pick up a sample there. I was half way back to Bath, and the phone went again. They had more samples at Chippenham hospital destined for the RUH, so I detoured across country to pick them up. Once I got there I found that one of the things I had to pick up was a sample of someone’s sick. Nasty!
My last call on Sunday was to Frome hospital again. It was another blood sample for the RUH. On the way back I had a near miss with a man talking on his mobile while he was driving. I was pulling on to a roundabout, but had to brake hard as he pulled out in front of me from the left. He saw me at the last minute & braked hard too, ending blocking the road in front of me. I gave him my best Paddington bear stare, and his face turned red as he drove away! I’m not sure if it was anger or embarrassment, but either way I hope he’ll think twice before answering his phone on the move next time.
Overall I had a great weekend on the Flying Crane. I enjoyed the riding, and hope that the calls I completed helped people who needed it. Can’t wait for my next shift!
Calls completed: 15
Miles: ridden: 379
Cups of tea: drunk: 4
Mars bars: eaten: 1
Hard stares given to car drivers using their phones: 1
On Friday July 1st, The Flying Crane had its official first birthday, marking the day that it went on duty following its presentation to Freewheelers by All Hallows School. Its mileage was an incredible 31,440 meaning that it has done an average of 605 miles a week — made all the more remarkable because the bike was taken off the road during the snowy weather in December and January. During the past year The Flying Crane has made around 1,000 deliveries, including some emergencies where a patient's life was considered to be at risk. We estimate that the bike has saved local hospitals £50,000 during the year, which would have been spent on taxi fares and couriers if we had not offered our service. Our thanks goes once again to the staff, pupils and parents of All Hallows School for their generous donation.
On the weekend of May 7th and 8th, our rider Mark kept a GPS track log of his deliveries. Use the Google Maps tool below to view the places that Mark visited.
On Monday May 16th, The Flying Crane spent the day at Bristol Motorrad, the BMW motorcycle dealer on Bath Road in Bristol. It went in to have its 24,000-mile service, which was a bit late as the mileage was actually 26,833. It is a bit naughty of us for letting it go over 24,000, but it is now the busy time for motorcyclists — the nice weather brings all the bikes out of their winter garages and the rider's first thoughts are to get their bikes serviced — and this means that we sometimes struggle to get a timely service appointment. The bike was perfectly OK though and is now good for another 6,000 miles.
When The Flying Crane, which was bought new in June 2010, went into service on July 1st, it had around 800 miles on the odometer. We put those first few miles on the bike to train our riders, to run it in and get it through its first 600-mile service. So that means that the bike has done 26,000 miles since going on duty. Doing a bit of maths (I'm sure you are all better at this than we are) that means the odometer mileage on the bike's first birthday will be 30,100 miles. Leave a comment on this blog post with a more accurate estimate, and we will give you one of our badges if you get within 200 miles of the actual figure!
Andy, who lives in Peasdown St John, got to help a sick baby this week.
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On May 11th, The Flying Crane was called to Paulton Birthing Centre to collect a blood sample to take to the Pathology Labs at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath for testing.
Later that evening the same call was received from Paulton. Another sample was required for the same baby. When I arrived at the hospital the Nurse called me in to see the baby. He was tiny, only five days old having been born at thirty six weeks, four weeks premature and he was jaundiced. I could see this when the Nurse who was holding him turned him round so that I could see him - his skin was quite yellow. Jaundice in newborns most commonly occurs because their livers are not mature enough to remove bilirubin from the blood and this is especially so in premature babies because their bodies are even less mature. The condition can cause babies not to feed properly and other medical problems.
The nurse explained that they needed to have his blood tested to determine how jaundiced he was so that they could identify the appropriate treatment. It was possible that they would need to give him phototherapy treatment which helps to break down the bilirubin. I took the baby’s blood sample, in a tiny tube only about 5cm long, to the Pathology Laboratory at the RUH. As I delivered the sample, one of the Laboratory Technicians who had been waiting for the sample, came and took it from me to start testing it immediately.
I called Paulton Birthing Centre the following morning and they were able to tell me that the blood tests had showed that the baby did indeed require Phototherapy and that he had received treatment using a Bili-blanket, a fibre-optic pad, throughout the night and that his blood would be tested again during the day.
This is a good example of how the Flying Crane directly helps the Hospitals and patients. Without The Flying Crane, this baby’s blood sample would have had to wait until morning before it was even tested, but instead it was tested immediately and he received treatment much more quickly.
I am sure that Mum and Baby are both very grateful for The Flying Crane.
When on duty with Freewheelers, there is a word that is dangerous to speak. If you must say it, do so softly, and hope nobody hears ...
The Flying Crane had been parked up all Wednesday night, waiting for the call that did not come. But at 2217, the phone call came, and the rider got dressed. Just as he stepped out of the door, the phone rang again. The Coordinator said the job had been cancelled. The on call Pharmacist in Bristol had discovered that the drug that the rider was to collect from him in Bristol and take to the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath was out of stock. Relax.
Then at just past midnight, the phone rang again. The patient, now at the RUH, needed this drug urgently and the only stocks were held at University College Hospital in London. This time the call had come from the RUH on call Pharmacist, and she confirmed that if delivery of the drug was left until normal working hours on Thursday, the patient’s life would be at risk.
This is a time to pause and consider. On the one hand, a patient has a very real need for this drug. On the other hand, if we accept this job at this time, this rider will be riding deep into the early hours of Thursday, after a full and normal day’s activities. By the time he gets home he will have been up for nearly 18 hours. Riding a motorcycle safely requires much, much more than knowing how to operate the controls properly. That skill set is just the beginning, the bottom step of the ladder. A safe and capable rider knows how to identify risks and how best to manage them. Riding when tired is a risk. Only the rider will know how he is placed to manage this – at that time, and in those circumstances.
The Coordinator’s task now is to make sure that the rider has all the information he (or she) needs to decide if this job is one to accept. The rider then has to decide if they will accept the job. The rider’s task at the point of decision is to be honest and very self-aware. This is just one of the reasons Freewheelers is very careful about whom it takes on as a rider. Sometimes the easy decision is to accept the job, but that may not be the best decision. The last thing we need, and the patient needs, is for a rider to accept a job and then to have an accident because they were too tired to complete it safely. Then we have turned a poor situation for the patient into a bad one for the rider, and a bad one for the patient as well.
In this case, having considered the situation and his own abilities, state of health and known capabilities in managing riding over very long days, the rider came to his decision. He was until recently a Flying Instructor for the Royal Air Force, and knows very well that flying and riding a motorcycle are similar in some ways. He is also very well aware of the saying that ‘there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots’. He said he was ready to go. But the Coordinator’s task is not yet complete, for he (or she) has to be ready to challenge the decision, taking into account all that they know.
In this case, the Coordinator agreed with the decision and told the RUH on call Pharmacist that we would do this job.
So the journey began. A crisp, clear night made for good riding conditions. Traffic levels were as low as they were ever going to be. When he arrived at University College Hospital, the rider found that he was expected and that the drug was waiting for him. That is as it should be, but not every job runs so smoothly. He got to the RUH and handed over the drug at 0410, which was just ten minutes off the estimate that he and the Coordinator had made when discussing the job. By any standard that was a result.
The Flying Crane was refuelled, and the rider back home at 0500. One job that evening, but it offered the patient a much better chance than they had before the job was done. One job, but it took five hours from the phone call asking if we could do this, to arriving home safely. One job, but it was 240 miles long.
The word? You may hear it when a Teacher enters a noisy room. It begins with ‘q’.
On April 27th, The Flying Crane starred at the opening of the new Sainsbury’s store in Odd Down in Bath. Because the staff at the store chose Freewheelers as their charity of the year, members of Freewheelers were invited to the opening, and The Flying Crane made a guest appearance as well.
Jason rode the bike to the store and parked it in the brand new shop foyer, with Freewheelers banner stands to each side. The banner stands and the bike can be seen in some photos from the day in our photo gallery.
The Flying Crane attracted a lot of attention, and drew many shoppers to come over and talk to us about the bike and about the work it (and we!) do. Some children who had come shopping with their mothers had an unexpected treat as they could sit on the bike and have photos taken by their parents on camera phones. Not only children, but some grown-ups enjoyed the opportunity to sit on a marked up bike – as you can see on the photo page.
Had The Flying Crane not been in the foyer we would not have been able to speak to so many people about our work. So not only does The Flying Crane do fantastic work when on runs, it even acts as a very valuable member of the team when parked.
The shoppers that noticed the name on the bike and the legend on the rear bodywork were all very impressed with the outstanding contribution that All Hallows School made in raising money for the bike.
Many of you will be familiar with the Where's Wally puzzles. Here's a new version called Where's Nick. While he was on duty at the weekend on The Flying Crane, our rider Nick, who lives in Keynsham, used the bike's GPS to track everywhere that he went. If you click the picture below you can see the map in more detail, or click here to see the map at full resolution.
If you study the map you will see some interesting things. Nick's trail forms an almost perfect rectangle with Keynsham, Chippenham, Warminster and Shepton Mallet as the corners. The only bit of the rectangle that he doesn't cover is the bottom left hand corner between Shepton Mallet and Nunney — the main road that goes past All Hallows School.
If your parents shop at Sainsbury's then you might want want to tell them to visit the brand new store that opens on April 27th at Odd Down in Bath. This week Freewheelers volunteers Andy, Peter, Jason and Simon were invited, along with other charities, to meet the staff of the new store. They were holding an event to decide who was going to be their charity of the year. After telling staff about our work, we were delighted to be selected as Sainsbury's Odd Down Charity Of The Year. Several events will be held at the store, starting on the opening day, and will continue throughout the year.
Those of you who know your motorbikes will no doubt spot that the picture on the right is not The Flying Crane, which was busy that evening making deliveries. The bike pictured is a Honda ST1100 Pan-European, which is on long term loan to us from Avon & Somerset Constabulary.
If you come to see us on the 27th, be sure to identify yourself as an All Hallows pupil, because you will be able to claim your Freewheelers badge.
Apologies for the delay in posting this blog entry - it got lost in my email inbox. Freewheelers volunteer rider Jason, who lives in Paulton, was on duty during the Bath Half Marathon on Sunday March 6th. Here is his account of what happened.
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Sunday 6th March, most of the roads in Bath are closed. I had already spent some time earlier in the week studying the maps of the half marathon route and thinking of potential routes around it. This was made harder with the diversion adding around 10 miles to the route to Bath from where I live in Paulton.
The call came in for a job whilst the marathon was at its peak! And it had to be the only possible scenario I hadn’t already planned.
An urgent sample needed to be collected from Shepton Mallet Community Hospital and taking to the pathology lab at the RUH. Shepton from my house is easy. But the route to Bath was not. With a quick mental calculation of a route I decided to go from Shepton to Frome, to allow me to come in from the right side of Bath to determine the way through. With the roads being moderately quiet I decided to go through Frome. This was the first problem. An incident in Frome had closed the main road through. A quick diversion, turned sour when everyone was then on the same route out of town. This is where the bike pays dividends, filtering to the front of every queue.
Back on to the A36, I am starting to think that I will not be able to get around Bath to the RUH without a 20 mile diversion (if I follow the signs). But just as I enter Bathampton, my mental compass kicks in (it’s something that bikers are born with!). So I cheat, and decide to follow a car that appears to know his way. We hang a right into Bathampton Village. A good result, but then I find it’s a toll road. Again a big queue to pay the attending Troll. He was doing a very lucrative trade today with everyone trying to find a route around the marathon. A quick wave through (fortunately free for emergency vehicles – and it’s very difficult trying to get change from your pocket in bike gloves!), and I pop out just where I need to be, and can now finish my journey without interruption from closures up to the RUH. The only trouble was getting home again, but by this time the runners had passed, and I was allowed to use the closed roads for a few hundred yards to get back on the A4 to go back to Paulton. Again the bike comes into its own, as there are cones and bollards everywhere. Overall, not the best or most efficient route, but the urgent sample was delivered quickly. Now can I fit the GPS please?
Apologies for the delay in posting this blog entry - it got lost in my email inbox. Freewheelers volunteer rider Bill, a retired RAF officer and flying instructor who lives in Chippenham and now teaches people to ride motorcycles, had an early morning ride to Swindon to pick up an urgent blood sample from Oxford which needed to go to the NHS Blood & Transfusion testing centre at Filton in Bristol. Here is his account of what happened.
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At just past midnight on the morning of Friday March 4th, I had a call from the coordinator asking me to do an urgent job that had just been requested. So began a cold and crisp starlit ride to Swindon to take delivery of a blood sample to be taken to the new National Blood Service in North Bristol. That new facility provides blood processing and testing from across Birmingham and the South West and their specialist analytical capabilities are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, when the services of hospital based pathology laboratories cannot meet the patient’s need – just as in this case.
I arrived at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon to meet another volunteer, this time a rider from Oxford, Bucks and Northampton SERV who had carried the blood sample from the start point of its rapid two wheeled journey. I packed the sample on The Flying Crane according to the strict requirements of the National Blood Service – the National Blood Service requires us to comply with both UK and European laws when carrying samples like this that may be a biohazard. This means that the blood sample had to be in a watertight leakproof receptacle containing the specimen, and then that it is placed in a second durable, watertight, leak-proof packaging to enclose and protect the primary receptacle. We meet that by placing the sample in its leakproof receptacle in specially marked ‘bio-jars’, or in special-purpose large sealable plastic bags we carry for items that will not fit in those jars. Even then the packing job was not finished as a bio-jar or special sealable bag has then to be carried in rigid outer packaging. This is where the panniers on The Flying Crane come into their own, as they do exactly that job.
So packing done, I was on my way back west riding as quickly as the law allowed. I got to the National Blood Service at just past 2 in the morning and handed over the sample for urgent processing. I got home at quarter to three having ridden nearly 100 miles on that run. As with most such jobs, I did not know exactly why the analysis was needed in such a hurry, but I do know that we did our bit to help a patient in real need, and that the Flying Crane played its part to the full.
On Friday when The Flying Crane was taken over by the next rider on the rota, Alan who lives in Yate, its mileage was 20,216. That is a lot of miles in a short time for a bike that was brand new when All Hallows School presented it to Freewheelers. At this rate the bike will have 28,000 miles on the clock when it reaches its handover anniversary on July 1st. To put this number into context, Avon and Somerset Constabulary use the exact same BMW R1200RT motorcycles. Their bikes were registered in 2007 and currently have an average of 27,000 miles on the clock - so we will do as many miles in one year as a police bike does in four years!
Freewheelers volunteer Allan Roberts, who is a keen photographer, put together this slideshow of our bikes, members and fundraising events. You will see lots of pictures of the bikes that came before The Flying Crane
It is upgrade time for The Flying Crane. Today the bike will go into Bristol Motorrad (the BMW motorcycle dealer in Bristol) to have its 18,000 mile service. On Friday its mileage was 18,899 so the service is slightly overdue. While it is there the bike will have a GPS fitted, thanks to a recent donation from NatWest and a very good deal that we got from Garmin, who were impressed with the work that we do.
Yesterday we fitted a rack to the bike. This rack will allow us to carry an insulated box containing either blood for transfusion, or frozen milk for premature babies. The rack, which is made from stainless steel bars that have been bent and welded together, sits on top of the hump where the All Hallows School logo is displayed. Thankfully the rack doesn't completely cover the logo so people will still be able to see how incredibly generous the school were in donating The Flying Crane to Freewheelers.
Click on the photos below to see a larger version.
Readers of this blog might not have seen our interviews page, which has profiles of some of our volunteers. Two of them are riders of The Flying Crane.
Andy Smith (pictured right) has been riding motorcycles since he was 17 and took his first advanced motorcycle test in 1983. He has taken several advanced tests since and currently holds a RoSPA Gold qualification. Andy and his wife, who have two grown up children, live in Peasdown St. John, which is ideal for reaching Bath as well as the other parts of the patch covered by The Flying Crane. Andy joined Freewheelers in 2006 and did his first duty just before Christmas in freezing weather. Andy's longest Freewheelers ride was carrying a CD-ROM from Southmead Hospital in Bristol to the Queen Anne's Hospital in Birmingham. He didn't pick up at Southmead until 10:30pm, so it was 2:45am before he got home. Despite that he is still with us! Apart from the blood bike, Andy rides a fantastic Aprilia Tuono 1000R sports bike.
Jason Phillips (pictured left) lives in Paulton, near Midsomer Norton, with his wife and two young children. He has been riding a bike for 10 years and currently owns a Triumph Sprint ST, which is a big 955cc sports-touring bike. Jason took his IAM advanced test in 2009, and continues to develop his riding skills. He joined Freewheelers in August 2009 and really enjoys riding for us - especially as he gets to travel down many different roads that he wouldn’t normally travel and says its great to make a note of those twisty and challenging roads for a dry summers evening to have a bit of fun. Jason doesn't like rain when he is out on the bike because of the reduced visibility from inside a helmet in the rain. On his first weekend of Freewheelers duty he completed over 17 calls that took him over 600 miles.
If you see Andy, Jason, or any other rider out and about on The Flying Crane be sure to give them a wave.
Chris, who lives in Yate, rode The Flying Crane for the first time from Friday 18th to Sunday 20th February. Here Chris tells us about his very busy weekend.
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It felt a bit like the first day at school or the first day in a new job when I went to collect the bike from James the previous rider who very kindly spent some time showing me around the bike so I would know where to find everything needed for the weekends duty.
The 30 minute ride home to Yate gave me a chance to get rid of the butterflies and get a feel for The Flying Crane as the BMW bikes are in many ways very different to most bikes, arriving home around 18:30 I let the Co-ordinator know when I was ready to be 'on-call'
At 19:20 my first job came in, collect samples from the Royal Mineral Hospital and deliver them to the Pathology Laboratory at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath. As the Royal Mineral Hospital is in the centre of the city I found myself having to ride through groups of people who for no particular reason were walking in the road. That job completed it was back home to await further calls. I was quite pleased not to get any calls through the night as it rained very heavily all night.
The first call on Saturday morning didn't come until 10:30 and that was to take medication from RUH to Cedar Ward at Chippenham, then straight back to the RUH for more medication — this time for Frome Community Hospital and collect samples to go back to the RUH, calling into Paulton Birthing centre to collect more samples for RUH. With no jobs outstanding it was back to Yate for some well earned refreshment. This is actualy very important if you don't refuel your body you can become tired and your levels of concentration drop which is not a good thing when riding a motorcycle. Although the next call was non urgent I got back on the bike and headed for the Riverside NHS Walk In Centre to collect what looked like the whole days samples to go to RUH, but before I left Riverside an Urgent call is recieved for blood samples to be collected from Frome birthing Centre so i head off to Frome. I was about half way there when i have to stop to take a call from the coordinator to tell me the Frome collection had been cancelled as the babies the samples were from were being transfered by amblance to RUH. So it's back to RUH to deliver the samples from Riverside. It is now 20:00. Little did i know at 19:55 a call from Cedar Ward at Frome came in to collect samples for the RUH so it's back to Frome, they did apologise for making me go back after cancelling the first call but i didn't mind it was quite a nice dry night a little chilly though so the heated hand grips became very useful. Back home at 22:00 with no calls during the night.
The first call on Sunday at 08:22 was to take two units of blood from RUH to Frome for this I had to use my car as the Flying Crane is awaiting a special rack to be fitted to carry the large containers which keep the blood cool. Sunday had started quiet but after leaving home at 11:30 to collect samples from Paulton Hospital which was less than an hours journey from home I didn't actualy get there until 15:20 as this job was Non-Urgent it got postponed while I took care of several Urgent jobs which inluded Meds from RUH to Warminster collecting swabs from Warminster to go back to RUH but first collecting more samples from Trowbridge Community Hospital bound for the RUH then collecting the samples from Paulton on the way and delivering them all to the Pathology lab at RUH. Arriving home at around 17:00 theres time for some tea before the next call at 19:14 to collect samples from St Martins Hospital Bath to go to the Pathology lab at RUH completed by 20:15, fuelling the bike on my way home to ensure the next rider started his duty with a full tank. I got back home by 21:00 and had no further calls. With no calls through the night i gave The Flying Crane a wash to help her (or is it him?) stay looking as smart as the day that All Hallows presented it to Freewheelers.
There was one funny and slightly scary moment. As I entered a long deserted corridor in one of the hospitals i heard a voice shout "STOP!" a few seconds later and as my heartbeat was returning to normal the voice, which I then discovered came from a talking sign on the wall asked "Have you sanitised?" It was there to remind all visitors to use the sanitiser before entering and leaving the ward.
An enjoyable weekend and I'm looking forward to my next duty at the end of March.
Simon, who lives in Yate, rode The Flying Crane from Monday 31st January to Thursday 3rd February. Here is Simon's account of what happened.
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This was not a very busy week on The Flying Crane with only 5 jobs although these were spread out over all 4 nights. All were evening jobs with the latest seeing me home at 11pm.
Monday saw me go to Chippenham birthing unit for the first run to the Royal United Hospital (RUH) Pathology Laboratory in Bath, and then towards the other end of the patch to Frome Community Hospital and returning back to the RUH.
Tuesday saw a new front tyre being fitted as the old one had reached its legal minimum and was badly worn making for a bumpy ride. However, riding on the new tyre had to wait. On Tuesday evening when the call came in just before 9pm to go to Paulton, I got all my motorcycle kit on and opened the front door to leave to be confronted by patchy fog. Now in my mind, fog and motorcycles do not go well together so a quick change of clothes and I did the run in the car. A wise decision as there was fog for about half the trip and on returning home from the RUH, the fog was very thick with a safe speed of about 30mph on a National Speed Limit road.
Wednesday saw me visiting one of the ‘old faithfuls’ again, Frome Community Hospital.
My experience is that jobs in this area tend to be samples of various types from other units in the area being transported to the RUH, so it made a change on Thursday evening to take patients notes away from the RUH Acute Stroke Unit to Beech Ward at Chippenham, which is also a stroke ward. Now the other slightly out of the ordinary thing was that on Thursday evening, I seemed to find a lot of ambulances to follow for some distance before it was safe to overtake. It should be said that none of them were on blue light runs so we weren’t having a ‘blues and twos’ race! Just before reaching home on my last run, one of the headlight bulbs failed. Fortunately the R1200RT has twin dipped headlights with a separate main beam bulb.
Fortunately the week stayed almost dry unlike my rota 3 weeks ago where I got absolutely drenched. Hopefully reproofing my ‘waterproof’ trousers has been successful.
Dave gets a kiss - a typical weekend on The Flying Crane
Sunday, 30 January 2011 00:00
This weekend, Friday 28th to Sunday 30th January, our volunteer blood bike rider was Dave, who lives in Longwell Green on the eastern edge of Bristol. This is what Dave had to say about his time on The Flying Crane.
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This weekend was nothing out of the ordinary, although I covered 360 miles, which seems average for a weekend on the East bike.
I did have a call to meet our sister blood bike group Hampshire SERV at Warminster Services at 10:30pm to transport blood samples from Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth to the Blood Transfusion centre at Filton, near Bristol. It was essential that the package had to be at Filton no later than midnight. They arrived in a Transit van (which made me worry that the package was going to be too big) at 10:25pm and after the necessary exchange of paperwork I dropped the package off at 11:20pm, well within the time. I assume the blood had to be matched for a patient in Portsmouth.
Closer to All Hallows, I had a trip to Frome Birthing Centre to collect blood samples to go to Royal United Hospital Pathology Laboratory in Bath. The nurse there was so grateful that she kissed my motorcycle helmet! Other calls were to Chippenham (again with grateful comments from the nursing staff) on both days, Bath Mineral Hospital and the Bath NHS walk in centre.
Temperatures were below freezing most of the weekend, particularly after dark but the roads were dry and so safety was not compromised. However, I am not sure I would have been happy to do 360 miles without the heated grips and seven layers of clothing!
You should tell the pupils at All Hallows that the bike has a spin off benefit, in that all drivers that see it assume it to be a Police bike and their driving improves immensly (except at night, unfortunately). I suspect that the Bentley driver that overtook on a straight between Chippenham and Marshfield before noticing me some way back would not have stuck rigidly to 55 thereafter, or the modified Nissan Sktline GTR driver that pulled out in front of me in Bath and drove impecably at the 30mph limit. Which all goes towards keeping the roads that little bit safer. It is also amazing how many times you see drivers dropping mobile phones.
Where did you spend your Christmas? Hopefully you were tucked up nice and warm at home with lots of presents and some good food, enjoying the company of your family. That wasn't the case for The Flying Crane, which was on duty 24 hours a day from 7:00pm on Christmas Eve right through to 7:00am on Wednesday 29th. Hospitals don't have holidays and people can get sick at any time, so we are on duty 365 days a year.
On Christmas Eve the bike had 4 calls. Christmas Day and Boxing Day were quiet with just 3 calls each, but on the bank holiday Monday it was really busy with 11 calls - although 3 were cancelled as our rider was just too busy. As you can imagine the hospitals were incredibly grateful for our help. Our riders were kept fed an warm with offers of tea, cakes and chocolates as they made their collections or deliveries.
On Friday 26th November 2010, Richard and Mike from Freewheelers joined the morning assembly at All Hallows. They presented the school with a glass trophy, laser engraved with a three-dimensional Freewheelers logo, as a thank you for the hard work done by the school's pupils, parents and staff in raising money to buy The Flying Crane. Mike also gave the pupils an update on what The Flying Crane had done since it started blood bike duty on Thursday 1st July.
Since we put the bike on the road we have done almost exactly 12,000 miles on the bike - that's an average of 570 miles per week, or 82 miles per day. Freewheelers' volunteer riders split each week up into two separate shifts. The weekend shift runs 24 hours a day from 7:00pm on Friday evening right the way through to 7:00am on Monday morning, as well as bank holidays and Easter, Christmas and New Year. The weekday shift runs through the night from 7:00pm to 7:00am, Monday to Thursday. We have done 21 weekend shifts totalling 299 calls - an average of 14 calls per weekend, the least was 9, the most was 22! We have also done 22 weekday shifts totalling 126 calls - an average of 6 calls per week, the least being 4 the most being 8.
Our average fuel cost has been 11 pence per mile at an average of 12 miles per litre - that's 54 miles per gallon. Adding maintenance & tyres (£1,045 total to date), insurance and road tax brings the running cost up to 25 pence per mile. At the current rate The Flying Crane will do 30,000 miles in its first year so that's a total cost of £7,500 to run the bike.
During the past few months we have had some interesting incidents. One of our riders, Bill who is a retired RAF Pilot, came across a serious road accident while out on duty on The Flying Crane. The policeman who was attending the accident flagged Bill down and asked him to sit on his bike, near the scene of the accident, with his flashing blue lights turned on to warn oncoming vehicles of the hazard. On another weekend, The Flying Crane was called out three times to Frome Community Hospital to pick up blood samples from a very sick newborn baby that needed to go to the pathology laboratory at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, using blue lights and sirens. The nature of our work means that we rarely get to know what happens to any patients that we help, so we pray that the baby was OK and thank the school for providing the bike so that we could help her.
On Sunday 12th September 2010, The Flying Crane got to take the day off to visit the Emergency Services Show at Hullavington Airfield near Chippenham in Wiltshire. This event is held every year to promote the work of all the emergency services in the West Country.
Having The Flying Crane there meant that we were able to show off our new bike to an admiring public. At the end of the day it got to parade up and down the airfield runway, with its lights and sirens turned on, along with all the other modern and vintage emergency services vehicles that were in attendance.
The total amount of sponsorship raised by the hard work of the school's pupils (as well as some of the parents who did a bit of cycling) was close to £14,000.
On 1st July, the pupils of All Hallows presented the new BMW R1200RT blood bike to Freewheelers.
A competition was held for the pupils to name the bike. The winning name was "The Flying Crane", reflecting the school's crane logo. It will now be displayed proudly on the bike for all to see. The competition winner removed the covers to unveil the bike and handed over the keys to the grateful Freewheelers volunteers.
The Flying Crane immediately went on duty in the Bath area. During the coming months, Freewheelers will provide the school's pupils with a log of the bike's activities so that they can track how many times it has been used, where it has been, how far it has travelled and what sort of cargoes it has carried. There will also be a "spot the blood bike" competition. Pupils who see The Flying Crane on duty will be able to submit details of when and where they saw it and, subject to verification, will win a prize from Freewheelers.
More photographs of the presentation ceremony can bee seen in our photo gallery.
The JOGLE ride (short for John O'Groats to Land's End) was one of the fundraising ideas that the pupils at All Hallows came up with. Two of their parents, Andrew Jolliffe and Mike Burns, were set the incredible task of cycling all the way from the top of Scotland the very bottom of England.
Throughout February, March and April, Mike and Andrew put in a huge amount of training by cycling all around Somerset. They would need it, because for JOGLE they would have to cycle an mind-boggling and leg-numbing 1,170 miles (1,890 km) in just 20 days.
Mike and Andrew, put the bicycles on a plane at Bristol Airport and flew to Inverness. From there they got a minibus to John O'Groats where they started the marathon ride on Bank Holiday Monday 3rd May.
Mike and Andrew kept an online diary of their trip - Mike and Andrew's Bloodbikes Appeal Blog - which is a great insight into the highs and lows they faced en route, and shows some photos of the things and places they encountered. At different times during the journey Andrew and Mike were accompanied by their wives, family, or friends - there to cheer them on and provide some company - but it was just the two of them that completed the whole route. Sometimes the cyclists would stay in bed and breakfast accommodation, but they also got to spend the night in real luxury at some of the Hotel du Vin hotels that were on the route down, thanks to the hotel group's kind sponsorship.
On Tuesday 18th May, the cyclists reached Bristol. Freewheelers volunteers clapped and cheered them as they rode along through the Avon Gorge, and the blood bikes gave them a VIP escort through the busy rush hour traffic to the Bristol Hotel du Vin for a well-earned afternoon tea. Even then they weren't finished for the day as both Mike and Andrew had to cycle to their own homes, across the Mendip Hills, for a brief and happy reunion with their children. On Wednesday the pair rode to All Hallows where they were joined by a large group of parents who cycled with them on a 20 mile ride across the beautiful Somerset countryside to Clarks Village at Street. From there Andrew and Mike carried on alone towards Taunton for an interview with the BBC and then on towards their final destination.
During the trip Mike and Andrew faced all kinds of weather including rain and strong winds that threatened to blow them off the bike. The last leg however, through Devon and Cornwall, was marked with scorching hot sunshine. Their triumphant arrival at Land's End (pictured on the right) was on Saturday 22nd May. Luckily someone was able to pick them up and they weren't made to cycle all the way home again!
Sponsorship raised during the JOGLE trip, which went towards the new bike, was £7,730.
At the beginning of 2010, Freewheelers Emergency Voluntary Service were invited to do a presentation to the pupils of All Hallows Preparatory School to talk about the work that we do. The children were told about our bikes, the area that we cover, the hospitals that we serve and the things that we carry.
After this presentation, the school decided that it would do some fundraising for Freewheelers, with an incredibly ambitious plan to buy us our first ever brand new motorcycle. All the children worked on fund raising ideas that would help them reach the target of a new blood bike by the end of the school year in July.
The bike chosen is the BMW R1200RT - the very same one used by Avon and Somerset Police. The R1200RT has a 1,170cc two-cylinder engine which uses a drive shaft instead of a chain to power the rear wheel. This means that the blood bikers will not need to adjust or oil the chain - a very messy job as any cyclist will know.
On Friday July 1st, The Flying Crane had its official first birthday, marking the day that it went on duty following its presentation to Freewheelers by All Hallows School. Its mileage was an incredible 31,440 meaning that it has done an average of 605 miles a week — made all the more remarkable because the bike was taken off the road during the snowy weather in December and January. During the past year The Flying Crane has made around 1,000 deliveries, including some emergencies where a patient's life was considered to be at risk. We estimate that the bike has saved local hospitals £50,000 during the year, which would have been spent on taxi fares and couriers if we had not offered our service. Our thanks goes once again to the staff, pupils and parents of All Hallows School for their generous donation. 
On April 27th, The Flying Crane starred at the opening of the new Sainsbury’s store in Odd Down in Bath. Because the staff at the store chose Freewheelers as their charity of the year, members of Freewheelers were invited to the opening, and The Flying Crane made a guest appearance as well.
