Anth was seriously injured in a motorbike crash at Elvington and his life was saved by the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Today, he and his wife Su share what happened that day, his long recovery, and how the experience has shaped their family life.

Anth is now preparing to donate a kidney to his son, Teddy — a moment made possible because of the care he received all those years ago.

If you want to find out more about Yorkshire Air Ambulance you can visit our website Yorkshire Air Ambulance

Each month, our crew is called to deliver urgent, lifesaving care, and regular donations help us stay ready for every mission.  

To set up a regular gift, text YAA5 to 70460 to give £5 a month.

Thank you

Welcome to Summat In t'air, the podcast by Yorkshire Air Ambulance. 2025 marks 25 years of Yorkshire Air Ambulance flying helicopters and saving lives across the region. So to celebrate, we're sharing stories of rescues and a glimpse of life at the charity.

It's not until a few years after when you can fully sort of go through everything, appreciate what you've been through and what's happened and how far you've come.

Anth's life was saved by Yorkshire Air Ambulance when he was involved in a motorbike accident at a race day in York. Now, years later, he's getting ready to swap roles and become a lifesaver himself, as he prepares to be a kidney donor for his son Teddy. Anth and his wife, Su join me for a chat.

I'm big into motorbikes and it started for me when I was about 14, had a trials bike, off road and got to 17 and could get a motorbike on the road and I did that, then got a bigger bike and it's too dangerous to go fast on the road, so I wanted to go on the track and do it and do feel this exhilaration of going fast and enjoying yourself. So I started doing track days and I got a specific bike for doing that, which was all specced up for riding on the track. And that's where it started, really. There's no other feeling like going around a corner 120mph with your knee on the deck. It's just incredible. It's incredible.

I'm never likely to experience it, but I can imagine it.

Yeah, I miss it, I guess I don't miss the racing, but, yeah.

How did you feel, Su, about Anth going out on his bike?

Well, at first I was all right about it because obviously he was doing it before I met him. I went to see him a couple of times when he was doing his track days and it was a good atmosphere, all the friends that he knows and. Yeah, it was good fun, wasn't it? And we went to see British Superbikes, the "real deal". Sorry, I wasn't particularly into bikes, but I liked all the camaraderie and all of that.

You didn't have a choice really, did you? Because it was what I was into, so you was into it as well. Whether you liked it or not!

Of course.

And like all the friends that I've met through Anth, they're all into bikes and the girlfriends all go along, all the wives now. And so, yeah, it was fine. Yeah, yeah.

The day of the crash, Anth what do you remember about it leading up to the crash?

Got up in the morning, had to be there to Elvington where the races were happening at about 7 o' clock to get into the gate. I remember probably being one of the first ones there. Sat outside the gate, waiting to get in.

I didn't go. I didn't want to be up on a Sunday at stupid o'clock.

So you weren't there,

Su

I wasn't there.

Got in, got all set up, got the bike on the stands and the tyre warmers on and everything and went out for, for practice. It's the first time I've been there, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire, riding around a circuit, trying to go as fast as you can where you've never, never been before because there's a lot of corners and bends.

So do you start off slowly and then get faster and faster as you go around?

Yeah, that's the idea, to build up slowly, but you didn't have much time, so you'd sort of get four or five laps of practice and then you'd sort of have to get your eye in pretty quick. So we did that and sort of tweaked about with the bike, made sure that was all set up right and we're all good. And by this time quite a lot of friends had arrived to watch as well.

We might have one or two motorbike enthusiasts listening. What sort of bike were you riding at the time? Just briefly.

Yeah. I was on a Yamaha R6 and this was an R6 cup bike from Rob McElnea at the end of the season that all the bikes are for sale. So I made sure I got first dibs in the back of the lorry. Out of the 30 odd bikes that are in there, to pick the best one.

Brilliant. That doesn't mean a thing to me. Anyway, thanks for letting us know. So, yeah, back to the day, back to the race. What do you remember?

First race was done and out the way and the second race was due to start about half past one. So got down onto the starting grid, race started, I was in third and we'd probably done a couple of laps and then remember coming into it's quite an S bend, but it was quite elongated so it wasn't a slow corner. So I was probably doing about 100 mile an hour into there. I had my knee on the deck hanging everything out to try and get around the corner. I thought, I'm going too fast here. I started to drift out and then I looked to see if there's anywhere I could sit up and straight line and go through. But it was marked with hay bales on the outside, so. So I started drifting out.

I had nowhere to go. So I hit the hay bales about 100 miles per hour. The bike cartwheeled through the air and I just followed it. I remember afterwards, some of our friends saying, you were flying through the air. The bike was flying through the air. We couldn't tell which was you and which was the bike. So I came down the first time because I was basically cartwheeling, so that must have snapped one of the legs. Then I bounced up again and cartwheeled through the air.

This must have happened two or three times. And then I came to a stop. I was conscious, fully conscious through it all. And I started to sit up, but then nothing felt connected. I was aware that something wasn't quite right, so I just laid back down. I could take my gloves off and I started to take my helmet off. And then all of a sudden heard these people coming towards me saying, no, no, no.

And I thought, oh, this is pretty serious, this. At the time there wasn't any pain. And then there was, there was hands all over me and everything. And then next thing I remember is the hearing the noise of the helicopter. And I could turn my head so I could just, just see it. And I saw the guys running towards me.

And that's when this set in that I'm, this is pretty serious, this. They came and basically said, we can't get you in your helicopter with your legs like that. We need to straighten your legs. And I was in absolute agony. One of the strange things I do remember is it was as if I wasn't there because I almost felt like I was stood at the side watching everything that was going on. And that's a strange gas and air, stuff like that.

Little bit of drugs, I suppose, doing that. Yeah.

So we got sort of stabilized and got me into the helicopter. I remember going into the helicopter. I remember being laid there in the helicopter and sort of trying to look out the windows. Conscious and aware of everything that was going on. It wasn't a particularly long flight because it was. This was at Elvington where the accident happened. And then we went to York. I remember saying, can we go to Hull? Because it's closer to home and it makes it easier for people to visit me.

But I didn't really have much, much choice in that. So we got to York. They got me out of the helicopter. I remember going into the hospital and the. The doors burst open in to the emergency room. And then there must have been what felt like four or five people either side, either side of me.

There was hands everywhere. And there was this hand that does this, that does that. And so at this point, they'd cut the, cut me leathers and boots off me. So my leathers were in about eight pieces. I've only just taken them to the tip, to be honest.

You've kept them for a long time.

I was hanging on to. I don't know what I was going to do.

Just a bag of bits.

Yeah, but they do. Somebody makes bags out of old leather and stuff like that, so.

Got a handbag for Su? Yeah, yeah, There you go.

Yeah, yeah, that would have been good.

So, Su, just going back a little bit. You were obviously blissfully unaware of all this. How did you get to here about this crash?

So I was in Tesco getting some bits for my, well, our Sunday dinner. Cause Anth was coming back obviously in the afternoon, and I had about five missed calls on my mobile when I got back to the car. And it was from Anth's phone. So I'm like, oh, he's rung me five times. So I wonder what's going on? And actually it was my friend Ali who was ringing off Anth's phone. And she said, hi, it's Ali. Where are you? And I was like, well, I'm just in the car park at Tesco. What's happened? Anth's had a little accident. And I was like, right. I'm thinking, broken arm. I didn't go to the worst place, which is where I usually go, but I didn't. I just thought, oh, he's broken his arm or something. And I was like, okay, so how bad is it? And she said, well, he's gone off in the air ambulance. At which point I'm thinking, okay, so that's pretty bad.

Serious.

And so I said, well, do I need to come? She said he'd gone to York. Do I need to come through? And we had this sort of bit of communication and she was going, well, it's your call. And I was like, York Hall, where's that? And so she's going, no, it's your call. And this went on for about a minute, and we still laugh about it now. And I'm going, yeah, okay, but where's York Hall? I was thinking that that was the name of the hospital. I didn't really know York that well, and I know there's a couple of hospitals. And she was like, no, no, honey, honey, it's your call if you want to come through. I was like, well, how bad is he? So we had all that.

That was bad.

You were pretty bad, yeah. But then my other friend, Dave and Kate, they rang and said, well, I went home and rang the hospital to find out how bad he was, whether I needed to go through immediately or, you know, was there a massive rush? And they basically just said, I think you should come through. They didn't really tell me anything about his injuries. And then Dave and Kate rang and said, well, we're bringing the van back with the bike and we'll get the car and we'll take you through. So bless them, they did. So they took us through and went straight into Anth laid there. His legs didn't look in the right position. He looked very, very gray, just not well at all.

Not a mark on him, but obviously a lot of internal injury that we didn't know at the time.

Can you remember, Anth, what your injuries were? Yeah. Can you list them for us, if you don't mind

Yeah, I don't mind it. It's something that I do reel off quite often, to be honest. My left femur, that was in three pieces, my right hip had dislocated backwards and took a chunk off the ball of the hip, compressed four vertebrae in my back, fractured ribs all around, punctured a lung, fractured my right shoulder and some internal bleeding as well, so not much, you know.

How long did the recovery take?

I was in intensive care for 10 days, something like that. And so about after 10 days, managed to get onto a ward. I was in York for probably four weeks, was it four weeks? And then I was transferred to Scunthorpe to be closer to home. I was in there for a week and then I got home and that's when the recovery started. So I was in a wheelchair for three months. I had a back brace on for three months, and then I had to have various operations on my leg.

You were on crutches a while.

Yeah, I was on crutches for ages. And initially they said you would be off work for a year at least, but I was back to work in five months, not doing what I normally do. Yeah, I remember one conversation with a doctor and I. I sort of said, yeah, well, I'll be all right. Be up doing this and that, and it'll be fine in a few weeks. And he got a chair and pulled up and sat down next to me and says, I don't think you realise the true extent of your injuries here. He says, this isn't gonna be a quick, quick fix. And he was right.

It must have been all the drugs I was on, to be honest, all the morphine and all that sort of stuff made me feel invincible.

So we've talked about your physical recuperation, but I know when you were talking to us about the lead up to the accident, I could see it was quite difficult for you to relive that. How have you coped mentally since the accident? Have you been to some dark places?

Yes. It's not until a few years after when you can fully sort of go through everything, appreciate what you've been through and what's happened and how far you've come. It sort of hits you when you realise what you've been through and it's. It's a struggle. You dream sometimes you dream about it, the impact of it happening. I remember anytime anyone came to see me, I was just apologising. I'm sorry, so sorry. But it affected me in a way that I've never experienced before.

But seeing counselors helped to talk everything through. I write. I've got a journal that's got everything in it from basically how we've talked about from the start of the day, talking through the day to the accident, post accident and then being in hospital as well. And that almost feels like a way of, like a release to get it out of your head a little bit. It's never going to go completely because it's happened, but it's something. I mean, I joke. It's not a joke, but I do. My friends joke about it, that when I will say, oh, they'll tell you about my accident and they just roll their eyes. But it is a way for you. Yeah, it's a bit, yeah, a bit of a release because I think you can't keep things in. You need to talk about these things and get them out and people are willing to listen. Yeah, you just need to talk because there's always people there to listen and just provide support as well. And we found that.

And I think I know the answer to this question, but how much of a support has Su been to you?

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I mean, she emptied my wee bottle because I couldn't get to the toilet or leave the bed to go to the toilet.

You insisted on a lot of bed baths, as I recall.

Well, it was all part. I was part of it, to be honest. My recovery was. Yeah, was enhanced, I think, with bed baths. I mean, it was a real baptism of fire suit because we met in the August. I moved in with Su on the New Year's Day, I think it was.

Yeah. We didn't mess about, did we?

No, no. So then we'd been together a few months then, and the accident happened on the 26th of April, 2009. So 8 months.

8 months we'd been together.

Yeah, that happened. And then it was. It was fight or flight, I guess, wasn't it? And you stuck by me. And I'm forever grateful to you for that and for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, because I think without them doing what they did for me...

Who knows where you'd have been?

Yeah, I might have not been here, sat here doing this.

Have you been back to meet the crew who rescued you?

Yeah. So we about four months after we went back and met Lee, to meet somebody that has effectively saved your life it's quite a humbling experience. And, yeah, it's something I'll never forget.

After your accident, do you still watch races with the same enthusiasm and do you still participate in bike racing?

No, my racing days are over. The handbrake sorted that out. I said, when I say the handbrake, I mean Su.

Outrageous.

But I love it, absolutely love it. It's. It's the nearest I'm going to get to. To actually racing again. We've been there. And the smell. So you can smell the rubber from the tyres, you can smell the exhaust fumes, the exhilaration and the adrenaline. Adrenaline is. Is just incredible.

It is quite exciting to watch the professionals do it because they go so, so fast and they're so close together, but don't enjoy watching Anth on the track days. Don't really like him going out just on the road. I mean, he spends so much time in the garage, like, messing around with the bike and then it'll just. One day he'll say, right, I might just go and just take it for a little ride. And I'm like, oh. And I just dread it. I hate it.

Well, here we are in 2025. You're still with us, thankfully, and you're father to Teddy.

Yes. Yeah.

Okay, Teddy, you can embarrass him. He's sat on the other side of the room. Tell us all about Teddy.

Teddy. Well, Teddy, he was. He was born in March 2013, was it?

Yeah, yeah, I remember. Trust me.

Yeah, he's. Yeah, yeah. He's a little superstar, isn't he?

He's amazing. Yeah. He's got a very dry sense of humour, as outside. He have no idea where he gets that from.

He's old before his years, I think, as well.

I think it's because he's an only child, so it's obviously.

Yeah, he's got that maturity around and.

Our friends as well. So, yeah, he is quite mature. It can be a pain. And also it's very, very untidy. His room is disgusting. It's horrendous. Yeah. But no, he's a really good kid.

He's got a. Teddy's over the other.

Side of the room.

He's seething. Steam coming out of his ears because he can't reply. So carry on.

He is big into my motorbikes, unfortunately. Can't say I was particularly chuffed, but didn't really. I was a bit outvoted. Didn't really stand a chance.

I. I never forced him into it, that. No.

But it was a lot of drip feeding from being like zero days old.

Well, that's what you do to me when the house needs decorating or something like that.

Oh, we need a new car. Drip feed for six months, eventually get.

No, I didn't do that with him. But eases into the racing as I am so watching British superbikes and world superbikes and the Isle of Man TT.

And Teddy's got a problem with his kidneys, hasn't he?

October 22nd. His lips were swollen, weren't they? Probably twice the size.

I thought he'd been bitten by something in the night because it looked like an allergic reaction. You took him to the doctors, didn't you?

Took him to the doctors and then he said, oh, yeah, and I've got a bit of pain in my belly as well. And I looked at. Because he'd not even mentioned this, the doctor was like, all right, okay. And they sort of said, we can't rule out appendicitis here. So that's where it all started. And it turned out that his kidneys were functioning quite as well as they should be. They suspected it may have been an acute thing. So over a few days or a week it might right itself and it didn't.

So we ended up in Leeds to see the specialist there. And that's when he was diagnosed with CKD, chronic kidney disease. From there, his function has deteriorated rapidly. Yeah. So his GFR, which is your filtration rate, your kidneys, it was about 45. To put that into context, as an adult, your GFR is generally above 90. So with scans and everything, they found out that his left kidney wasn't working hardly at all. And it was.

That was horrendous.

That was a challenging time, that. And unfortunately, with sepsis, that goes for your organs. The first organ it goes for is your kidney. So then that took a big chunk of it. So that in that situation, that's one of the worst things that could have happened, really. So from there, its function has deteriorated really, really quickly. He's now in stage 5 CKD, which is basically kidney failure. So his GFR is about 13 now.

So that means that he's been worked up for a kidney transplant. And at the same time, I've been classified as a good match. I've been through virtually all the tests now, and it's just a case of collating all the CT scans, the DMSA scans, all the blood results, and sending them off to Leeds to make sure they're happy to. To go ahead with a transplant. And hopefully that will be October time. There was a possibility that he was going to end up on dialysis a few months ago, but he's just managed to avoid that. And they're hoping that it can do this transplant preemptive, so he doesn't need dialysis.

So that's. That's what we're hoping, and that's what Teddy's hoping for. So we just have to. Just have to see how it goes. You'd do anything for your kids, Absolutely anything. And to be able to do that is just, just incredible. And then I think that goes back to that the date when the ambulance come to rescue me and save me. And because they saved me, we created a life. Mm. Mm. We've created a life. And I'm still here. Hopefully I'm gonna be able to save a life as well.

It's quite a challenging time, really, because we never know when he's gonna be well, when he's not gonna be well, whether he's gonna make a full day at school, a lot of time where he doesn't. I don't know if that's because it's poorly because of the kidney or because he's got dance.

Yeah, he doesn't like dance or French.

I'm with Teddy on that because I don't like dancing. I certainly don't like French.

Just Wow. Anth's story is incredible for the rescue and recovery alone, but to now be hopefully donating a kidney for his son, well, that's just amazing. And it goes to show the ongoing effect of the work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. As Anth says, he's been able to create a life with his wife and save a life too. That might not have been possible if it wasn't for the emergency care he received that fateful day at Elvington. If you want to support the work the Yorkshire Air Ambulance does, go to our website, yorkshireairambulance.orguk where you can easily donate.

Thank you for listening to Summat in t'Air. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please share it and tell your friends to listen.