Extra Eyes in the Air for The Tour de Yorkshire

The Yorkshire Air Ambulance service will be drafting in a third helicopter this year to cover the Tour de Yorkshire, over the May bank holiday.

Organisers expect to see over one millions spectators attend the three stage event over the weekend, after the success of last year’s Tour de France.

The charity attended 30 incidents during last year’s Tour de France, almost ten times their average number of call outs.

YAA Chief Pilot Capt Andy Lister said: “We know from the amazing success of the Tour de France last year just how popular this first Tour de Yorkshire is likely to be and how much extra operational pressure that may lead to. Not only that, it is also a Bank Holiday weekend so we are also likely to see an increase in tourists to the area too.”

The new addition to the fleet of helicopters will be based at the charity’s northern airbase at RAF Topcliffe, near Thirsk.

The YAA is an independent charity providing a rapid response emergency service to five million people across Yorkshire.

The work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance has also been documented by the successful BBC 1 series, ‘Helicopter Heroes’, most recently in April 2014.

Openhouse are a supplier of equipment and bespoke medical bags to the YAA for many years now. The bespoke bags created by Openhouse are all designed to help the crew, paramedics and staff transport their often heavy and delicate equipment safely and easily. To see how Openhouse could help you, please get in touch now.