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 Freewheelers EVS is featured in the August issue of Motorcycle Sport & Leisure magazine, one of the UK's leading bike magazines.
The five page article ( 1.4Mb), part of the magazine's regular "A Day In The Life" series, looks at the work done by Freewheelers volunteers. It begins in dramatic style:"Imagine the unimaginable, the unpalatable, but the ever possible. You've been out on your bike, sideswiped by a car, and wound up in a hospital bed. You need an operation that may require specialist x-rays or scans, or maybe a pint or two of blood. Perhaps the surgeon's saw will need a nice new sharp blade. We all know by now the pressure the NHS is under, and don't think that they'll send an ambulance just for your titanium leg screws, so who's going to bring this stuff to help you if it's needed by the medical staff, and needed quickly, at times urgently, and out of normal hours? The angels with dirty faces that serve a huge area of Somerset, north Somerset, Bristol, Bath and west Wiltshire are the Freewheelers Emergency Voluntary Service, and it's they who are called upon and relied upon, by NHS medical staff, to collect and deliver these vital supplies." ©2007 Adam Bolton, Motorcycle Sport & Leisure
The article contrasts our work with volunteering to making cakes for the village fete, describing what we do as "extreme volunteering". It also has interviews with Freewheelers volunteers and has a number of pictures taken in the grounds of Frenchay Hospital. Some notable quotes from our volunteers include:
- "Some days I'll get in from work at 6:50pm having just flown in from Scotland, the wife hands me a pint of orange juice and lemonade that I'll stick down my neck, then I'm out of the door again by 7pm on an emergency call" - volunteer rider Mark Douglas describing the difficulty of balancing a full day's work with riding for Freewheelers in the evening.
- "How urgent?" "Well let's put it this way" came the reply, "we've got him on the operating table with his head open, and we want to know what to do next" - a reply from a hospital to one of our co-ordinators when asked about the urgency of a call.
We would like to thank reporter Adam Bolton and Motorcycle Sport & Leisure Magazine, the article is great publicity for us and for other blood bike groups around the country. Be sure to go out and buy a copy today. Better still take out a subscription to this excellent magazine!
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