The Yorkshire Air Ambulance were in Huddersfield last week receiving a special award at the Examiner Community Awards ceremony.

The 16th annual Examiner Community Awards came around last week honouring the local Huddersfield community, people and life changing organisations. The awards were started in 2000 by local newspaper, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner.

Held in the conference hall at the John Smith’s Stadium, home to the football club, Huddersfield Town, nominees and their friends and families came to celebrate the selfless people of the area.

During the night courageous and selfless stories were commemorated with the sought after Examiner Community Award, and one prize in particular stood out from the rest.

The Achievement Award

The Achievement Award, the most important prize of the night, was given to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA). The heroic flight team, who feature on the BBC’s Helicopter Heroes, transport injured emergency patients and save lives daily.

The YAA’s Director of Fundraising, Paul Gowland, accepted the award along with Kerry Garner the Regional Fundraising Manager. Paul told the audience,

“We are lucky in that here in Huddersfield we have had the marvellous support of the Examiner for 15 years and a tremendous amount of support from the community.

“The media is the oxygen of publicity for charities and we need that. We at the Air Ambulance have come a long way in that time but there is a long way to go.

“People may be surprised to learn there are only four trauma centres in the region for serious injuries, in Middlesborough, Hull, Sheffield and Leeds, and in between them is an awful lot of roads to cover. Imagine transporting patients through York or Ripon races, or when Huddersfield Town play at home.”

The YAA is Huddersfield Town’s chosen charity, which they support year in and year out by organising bike rides and walks to raise money.

“We get something like 40% of our workload from road incidents, many of them on the M62, and that is very relevant to people in Huddersfield.

“We are lucky that in this area we have some beautiful countryside, but that brings problems in its remoteness. There is a lot of work for the Air Ambulance to do.

“We get fantastic support from the likes of Huddersfield Town and so many other groups in this town.

“There are 4.4m people in the region and if every person gave £1 a year, we would meet our targets”.

“No Matter Who Wins They are all Winners”

The awards made for an exciting night, and highly deserved praise was bestowed upon all the nominees and winners. The Examiner’s Editor, Roy Wright, told attendees,

“When we started these awards in 2000, we never imagined how much they would become such a major event and one of the best night’s in Huddersfield’s calendar.

““No matter who wins, they are all winners.”

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Quotes Sourced from the Examiner