• DAVE HAINES, 32, Stratton, Swindon: Dave Haines had so many broken bones he couldn’t move at all when he awoke in an Intensive Therapy Unit at Bath RUH after an induced coma.

“All I could move was my eyes,” he said.

Two weeks earlier, he had come off his motorbike on the A420 between Chippenham and Allington.

It would be another five years before he would walk again unaided, but he did not give up riding motorbikes and is now an instructor for the Institute of Advanced Motorists.

The Network Rail signalman, who lived in Lyneham at the time of the incident, said: “Every surgeon and specialist that has read my file is amazed I survived, or at the least that I didn’t lose my leg.

“The care Richard Miller and Kevin Reed gave me along with the flying skills of George Lawrence was the start of it all; without these three guys and their wonderful flying machine I would not be here today.”

  • GARY MASLIN, 49, Rowde: Prison officer Gary Maslin was at the sandwich counter in Sainsbury’s in Devizes when he had his heart attack.

He was driven to the WAA base at police headquarters, airlifted to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and then driven by ambulance to the specialist Bristol Heart Institute.

Mr Maslin said: “When I was taken out of the ambulance into the helicopter, the paramedic said to me, ‘That’s what your taxes paid for, now you’re going into charity’. That will always stick with me.

“The air ambulance, all the paramedics, and the staff at Sainsbury’s were absolutely brilliant. They saved my life.”

  • CAROL BROTHERS, 64, Easterton: Grandmother Carol Brothers suffered cardiac arrest on a shopping trip. Her heart did not start beating again for 45 minutes. She was given CPR by her daughter, her neighbours and a community first responder and then intubated by WAA paramedic Matt Baskerville, who used a defibrillator.

She was flown to the Critical Care Unit at Bath RUH, where doctors thought there was no hope and her family agreed for medication to be withdrawn so she could die peacefully. But, to the astonishment of everyone, three days later Mrs Brothers opened her eyes. She was discharged from hospital three weeks later, suffering short-term memory loss but no brain damage.

Her grandson Martin Dickin-son, of Potterne, jumped out of a plane to show his gratitude to the WAA and raised £1,930.

  • MAX CHANT, 11, Chipp-enham: Sadia Chant will never forget the moment she arrived at the scene of a car accident near Yatton Keynell involving her two children.

She said. “What I saw when I got there was a blanket with something underneath very still and at that point I froze and honestly I thought my children were dead.”

She will also always remember the reassurance she received from the air ambulance team, in particular paramedic Matt Baskerville.

Her six-year-old daughter was bruised, but Max, then 10, was in a serious condition and airlifted to Bristol Children’s Hospital.

Mrs Chant, 40, said: “Matt was beyond excellent. He stayed with us the entire time. I just had that reassurance, I kept looking over and he was still there.”

Max had a clear split in the vertebrae and a broken collarbone and had four screws and two rods put in to hold him together, by one of the top ten spinal surgeons in the country, who happened to be in Bristol that day.

“For a boy that used to play ice hockey and do tae kwon do, it’s devastating,” said Mrs Chant.

He still can’t do sports until the end of next year, apart from swimming.

“St Mary’s sports centre in Calne have given him a free year’s swimming membership which allows him to build up his strength, and he’s doing well. But if it wasn’t for the WAA, Max might not have survived that journey.”

Max, now at Hardenhuish School, said to the WAA: “Thank you for literally saving my life.”