Devon Air Ambulance marks another record-breaking year

2024 saw Devon Air Ambulance (DAA) crews responded to 10% more serious illnesses, injuries and incidents across Devon and neighbouring counties, and provided crucial, time-critical care to 4% more patients

2024 saw Devon Air Ambulance (DAA) crews responded to 10% more serious illnesses, injuries and incidents across Devon and neighbouring counties, and provided crucial, time-critical care to 4% more patients. The charity thanks the local community for enabling it to continue its vital service.

The charity’s 2024’s mission statistics prove that a sudden, serious injury or incident can happen to anyone, anywhere. Of the 2459 times the service was called to assist, 1254 missions were attended by Helicopter and 1104 by Critical Care Car (36% increase from 2023). The charity’s Volunteer Responders were also tasked to 118 missions. The Volunteers Responder scheme is an initiative whereby Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) dispatchers can draw upon DAA’s off-duty clinicians to respond to an emergency they are local to.   

DAA crews helped 1187 patients suffering from medical emergencies last year, with the most common cause being 383 cardiac arrests. They were also tasked to 1254 trauma related incidents, including 334 road traffic collisions. Of the 2459 total missions in 12 months, they assisted 164 children aged 0-17 years, 855 adults aged 18-69 years and 381 patients over 70 years of age.

DAA remains ready to respond 365 days of the year using its two helicopters and fleet of Critical Care Cars to bring urgent hospital level care to their patients. In 2024 they responded to 442 deployments in the hours of darkness where in some instances, the charity’s 202 community landing sites proved invaluable in enabling DAA pilots to land as close to the scene as possible.

These latest statistics highlight just how important Devon's Air Ambulance service is across the county. 

Darren Goodwin, Operations Director for Devon Air Ambulance, explains:

‘These record-breaking figures highlight that the demand for our service continues to rise and indicates just how often we are called to assist critically ill patients at home, in workplaces or while they are out enjoying the beautiful Devon landscape.  

We saw an increase of 10% more missions in 2024 v 2023 which is a significant number of over 250 more people needing our urgent help.

Our work continues to reach more people in a wider variety of situations than ever before. None of these lifesaving missions would be possible without the generosity of our supporters and donations from the communities we serve, for which we really are, deeply grateful.’ 

Devon Air Ambulance extends its heartfelt thanks to the local community for their ongoing support, which enables the crews to provide specialist, time-critical, pre-hospital care to their patients when they need it most.