The Great Western Air Ambulance Charity is appealing for Wiltshire people to support its campaign to buy a new helicopter.

The air ambulance is based in Filton, near Bristol, and mainly covers Bristol, Bath, parts of Somerset and Gloucestershire but also attends incidents in Wiltshire when the Wiltshire Air Ambulance is unavailable.

Great Western needs to raise £250,000 for a new Eurocopter EC 135 helicopter to replace the ageing Bolkow 105 model that it uses.

The charity says the new helicopter would attend to patients four minutes faster and have more space inside.

John Christensen, chief executive of GWAAC, said: “Our air ambulance attends an average of one cardiac arrest per day. Our cause relies on the support of the people that we serve in order to continue operating as we receive no government or National Lottery funding.”

For more information or to get involved in a fundraising activity, call (0117) 969 9344.