We're off to Barnsley Live, a music festival in South Yorkshire where Yorkshire Air Ambulance was chosen as the charity partner.

We follow the fundraising team, volunteers, and local supporters to see how community spirit helps keep the helicopters flying.

From bucket collections and merchandise stalls to conversations with festival-goers and even the Mayor of Barnsley you'll hear some of the ways the charity works to keep the helicopters flying.

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

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

YAA Ep 6 Transcript

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. We're in Barnsley following the south fundraising team on one of their many days out in the community raising money. Yorkshire Air Ambulance is this year's charity at Barnsley Live. If you've not heard of Barnsley Live, it's a huge one day musical festival in Barnsley town Centre across 29 different venues. Thousands of people come to the town to enjoy the bands and the atmosphere. So it's a great opportunity for the charity to get donations and raise awareness.

This morning we've been busy setting up, getting gazebo up, getting stock out, organising all the buckets, getting all the volunteers together and now we're just on our way to join the parade which opens the music event and kicks everything off. So, yeah, that's where we're on our way to now. There was a lot to carry this morning and a lot to organise, but yeah, we've made it, we've done it. We've already had donation first thing this morning in the car park, so we not even got everything out the van, a donation in the lift and now a gentleman just stopped us in the street to give us a donation. So it's really, really lovely. But yeah, it happens a lot. You'll be surprised. The community events are really, really important to what we do, not only financially, but also being able to talk to people about the work that we do, raise the awareness because there's still people who don't realise we are a charity.

So, yeah, just getting the word out as well is really important. Yeah, absolutely amazing. Such a good atmosphere. I think we all enjoyed it. We all got involved, singing, dancing. Yeah, incredible. So we will now all separate into smaller groups and we'll be going around the venues that are taking part and bucket collecting and chatting to members of the public. And then we just need to pop round to all the venues and drop them off at collection tins so they'll have them out on the bar as well.

It is hard work, yes, the long days often. But yeah, it's amazing. It's an amazing atmosphere. Such a brilliant charity to work for as well. Yeah, I love days like this. They're long and then tonight I'll be tired. But yeah, they're absolutely brilliant.

I'm Councillor David Leach and the Mayor of Barnsley. It's important for Barnsley Live to support a charity and this year's chosen charity is a Yorkshire Air Ambulance. And what better charity is there? I mean, if people give generously, then we can keep the air ambulance flying. Barnsley folk are absolutely fantastic at being generous. Their generosity holds no bounds, so you'll find yourself inundated with money.

It's not just buckets and collection tins where the money is coming in today, community fundraiser. Karina tells us what's on the stall they've set up opposite the main stage.

So we've got key rings, we have trolley coins, we've got fridge magnets, pens, water bottles, bags, also hats. A huge variety of stock, so it's something to suit everyone. I think. People obviously are kind enough to donate, but sometimes they do like to take a little token, you know, a fridge magnet on their fridge, or a little keepsake to remind them of their support for the charity, which is great. And every time they wear their baseball cap or their beanie or carry their shopping bag around, they're advertising for us. So that's all great stuff as well. So we absolutely love people to taking our merchandise. I really like the new notebooks that we've got in that are designed by Luce and Bear, because they've got lots of things associated with Yorkshire Air Ambulance illustrated on the front there.

So really nice quality. The pen's right lovely and they look great. So, yeah, I think that's my favourite merchandise.

And if that's not enough, there's also some games to keep the youngsters entertained.

My name is Brian and I'm here to help the spin the wheel. They're absolutely loving it. They love it when they can just have a spin and if they spin again and then they can choose anything they want.

I've been like. Got very lucky and I got like, about three or four “spin again”s, didn't I?

It's so, so important that we encourage children in today's society to be aware that charities like this are absolutely vital. Life is precious. And so that is why we feel that this is something that's worthwhile to help somebody have a life, because life is precious. I think that this is one of the best charities that we've ever, ever worked for. And the thing that I like about this is, at the end of the day, there's two little words. Thank you. And that is worth all the time that we spend with the air ambulance. Them two little words are so, so special.

Brian's not the only volunteer here today. There are a fair few helping out. We caught up with a couple of others. The rest were dashing around all day.

My name's Emma and I'm here as a South Yorkshire volunteer for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. I volunteered about, gosh, about six years ago now. I was at Barnsley FC when someone got airlifted and seeing that first hand, I think, really made me realise that Yorkshire Ambulance is a charity and it doesn't get any financial support, only from generous people. So I wanted to be a part of helping to keep the helicopter running and saving lives.

Hi, I'm Gareth, I am trying to sell raffle tickets. My main role for the air ambulance is I do public speaking, deliver presentations to young people, the scouts, the guides, older people, the Women's Institute, that sort of thing. I used to be a private pilot, so anything to do with flying is of interest to me. I used to be, until I retired, a solicitor in South Yorkshire. So really I want to put back into society who've been very good to me, you know, I've made a good living out of, out of South Yorkshire and now I want put stuff back in. So it's nice to be able to do something. The one conversation that a lot of people start off with is, I cannot believe that you are not funded by the government and we aren't. The youngsters come up with all sorts of interesting questions like, are the rotor blades sharp? Those were the young scouts.

You'd be surprised to hear the young farmers are just as bad. It'll be. They want to know all the gory details about the jobs we've been to for farmers. And the older audiences want to know more practical stuff, you know, how quickly can we actually get to somewhere, how fast do we fly, that sort of thing. They also like to know about the flight crew that we have, the paramedics, the consultant. And some of them assume that the pilots are just private pilots who volunteer. They don't realize that these are really, really expert. The whole of the crew is expert, nobody's a novice there whatsoever.

Let's hear from Holly again for an update on the day.

We've just been round collecting in the bars and we're gonna go over to the main stage and do some more collecting. I think getting a little bit tired now, so it might be coffee T time, I think, get a bit more energy. Ready for afternoon.

I'm Kev, I'm one of the event organisers.

Rachel Harbor, event coordinator. Yorkshire Air Ambulance is a. Is a big presence in Barnsley. Anyway, I know you do a lot of fundraising in the market and things like that and it's a fantastic cause. I mean, in general, it's. You're saving people's lives and for what you do and the type of infrastructure that you need to be able to do that, it needs the funding. And that funding comes from local people and residents. So to have so many people in the town centre today that are able to help put money towards that charity is just amazing.

We basically spend basically six months of the year, from the picking the date all the way through picking the bands of the venues. So at least when somebody. You get a day like this and somebody goes, it's brilliant. You're like, oh, somebody likes it. And you get. Everybody knows what social media is like, you get lots of criticism and you depend on something like this working and being nice. And then the fact that you have it to get money means you can literally go, this is why we did it. We're not in it for us.

Nobody who's organized this gets anything from it. It's all, get money for the charity. Don't buy a drink, put something in. Don't buy all them drinks, buy one less, put it in the pot. I always think it is about music initially, but it's like, enjoy music, go and watch some music you wouldn't normally watch, or go to a bar you wouldn't normally go in. And while you're there, put your hand in your pocket or scan the QR codes and donate to the charity, you've got a free day's entertainment.

It's one less pint, but that could save somebody's life by just putting a few coins in a bucket today. And I think there's enough people here to be able to make a massive difference.

We've been hearing a lot about what goes on at fundraising events like this. Bucket collections, merchandise for sale and, of course, a lot of trips to and from the vans. But what else does a fundraiser do? Holly's been sharing what her job is really like.

We always say about the fundraiser role, it's a big job made up of, like, lots of little jobs. So I deal with community events, with corporate supporters, volunteer management. We do talks in schools, talks to businesses, bucket collections. I'm trying to think of all the other stuff. Yeah, all sorts of, like, little jobs made up into one. One big job, really. One of my first events I ever did was a stall outside in, like, a shopping precinct and it was absolutely freezing, like, the coldest day. And by the end of it, like, we literally could not feel our hands.

And we got in our van to drive home and I had to say, I'm gonna have to Sit for, like, five minutes to thaw out, because I literally can't feel my feet to drive. Which just shows that we do stuff in all kinds of weather, so you've got to be prepared for that. But it's amazing. Yeah, it's genuinely amazing. It's surprising, actually, how many people you talk to that have either been airlifted or know someone who has. And that's the thing that surprised me most, I think, when I first started. It's incredible how many people have been affected and have become part of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Yeah, it's amazing.

We've got a fantastic volunteer team. They're all really enthusiastic and energetic, so that keeps you going. And I think sometimes you can get to the end of a day and start thinking, I'm really tired. And that's always the point, usually, where someone comes over and tells you their story about why we matter so much to them, and then that sort of puts it all into perspective, really, and you suddenly think, yeah, it's been tiring, but actually it's been like, 100% worth it.

And there were lots of questions from the visitors to the stall, so we asked paramedic Gemma to answer them.

What is the most satisfying save that you've ever completed? Was it the difficulty? Was it the person? And it'd be interesting to know what that went like.

So I think the most satisfying job that we can go to is any patient who, as a survivor, comes back to visit us on base. It's really, really nice when patients reach out and want to meet us and talk about their experience and allow us to kind of see the end to the incident, because a lot of the times we don't know what happens to our patients. So it's really, really lovely when they come back and they want to say thank you and they want to have a chat with us. We love that.

Isabella, how do you work in airplane? One of them like flying airplanes.

Hi, Isabella, thank you for asking the question. So how we work it is that there's some switches in the front that the pilot can switch on and that makes the engines turn on and the rotors start turning and then that allows us to lift up in sky and fly away.

Hi, I'm Nathan. What is your top speed you had out of your helicopter?

So, Nathan, the top speed is 120 knots, which I think kind of in miles per hour is about 150 miles an hour. Obviously, that changes depending on the wind direction, so if the wind's behind us, we'll go even faster. But if we're flying into wind, obviously that'll make us a little bit slower.

Hi, I'm Simone, I'm just wondering how much fuel you use per trip in the air ambulance,

Simone so it varies depending on how far we go. Our aircraft tank, I believe, holds about 600 liters, so it allows us enough fuel to maybe fly for an hour and a half. Most of our missions take about 20 minutes. We can get anywhere within Yorkshire and within about 20 minutes. So we've got lots of fuel for a few missions. Normally when we come back and we refuel, we're probably putting in about 200 liters every time. So that sounds like an awful lot if you were putting that into your car, doesn't it? Fuel's expensive, but it's well worth it for the patients.

How do you get it in the, like, vehicle if they're like very badly injured and you don't have the bed?

Hello. So we do have a bed in the back of the aircraft. We've got a bed that can even sit up to let our patients sit up if they need to. But a lot of our patients lay flat and we load the stretcher in through the back doors of the aircraft. The stretcher's on little wheels so we can wheel, wheel the stretcher to the patient if we need to and we can also wheel that patient right inside the hospital. When we arrive.

We hear lots and lots of great stories. I think the most recent one for me, I was chatting to a gentleman and his son and we'd actually airlifted his son a long while ago now, but he'd climbed on the roof to retrieve his rugby ball and unfortunately fallen through the roof. And he'd come over to say to us, you know, thank you so much, because without you potentially wouldn't be here. But he's actually now playing rugby professionally. So that was like an absolute amazing, like full circle moment where you think that's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, all sorts of great stories that you get to hear. We did once have a gentleman actually come over to us and he wanted to show us his tattoo.

So we were like, oh, if it's somewhere you can show us, then yeah, go ahead. And he'd got the full Yorkshire ambulance logo tattooed on his back. He just said he really liked the charity, watched the program and he thought it was amazing. So that's why not. Not really anything, you know, anything. Or maybe he's had like a really strong connection. But yeah, he just said he loved the charity and that's why he'd had it done. The best ones for me are always when you get to speak to people who have had experience of the air ramblings and their story and their outcome is a good one.

That's always the best feeling. Met some fantastic families, ex patients who've unfortunately, by no fault of their own, often become part of the air ambulance story and getting to hear their outcome and it be a positive one. They're always the standout moments that we go away with. Truthfully, I love the job I do and I think I'm very spoiled that I do love what I do. I know not everybody's lucky enough to have a job where they wake up on the morning and want to do it, but it's the team as well. It's a fantastic charity. We have a really, really good team in every department, not just the fundraising team. The volunteers we have are incredible and.

Yeah. And just remembering that why we're here, that we are here for the people of Yorkshire and all those patients whose lives have been affected. Yeah, that's what keeps me going.

Throughout the day. People came along to the stall to donate, buy a poncho when it rained or simply share why they wanted to support the charity.

I used to be secretary of the darts league and we used to donate money every year for Air Ambulance, thousands of pounds of a year.

So it's a fantastic charity. Thank you very much for everything you do. You're very much valued and appreciated and we'll continue to support you in what you do.

Well, I've always supported Air Ambulance. I mean, I think it's one of the best things this country's ever got and if anything deserves supporting its Air Ambulance. I thank them very much for everything they do.

Yeah, carry on what you're doing.

It's a good cause, really. You know, everything helps. So yeah.

Been as bikers as well. There's been quite a few, you know, members that have been needing the Air Ambulance and as bikers community, but also worldwide as well in there that they're helping everyone else get to and, you know, they're doing a fantastic job with it.

So I've been and seen one because one landed on my field and so I've been there and seen that. I just think it's a fantastic thing. I know they do a good job and they save lives.

And at the end of a busy day, let's check in again as Holly and her team make one of many trips to the van with all the kit

Tired but it's been a really nice day. Yeah, really lovely. Great atmosphere. Everybody's worked incredibly hard. So, yes, pleased. This will all go in my van and then Monday, probably, I'll do a little bit of reorganising and straighten it all up, ready for the next event. And then money will be needing to be counted and we'll contact the organisers just to say thank you and let them know how much we've raised. We've got another event coming up this weekend, so that's a stall at a summer fete, so looking forward to that one. Get re energized for that.

I'm exhausted just listening to everything the team got up to. Thanks to the people of Barnsley for choosing to get behind the Yorkshire Air Ambulance at this year's Barnsley Live. And, of course, the organisers too. If you want to support the work the Yorkshire Air Ambulance does by becoming a volunteer and helping out at events like this, go to our website, yorkshireairambulance.orguk where you can get in touch with the team. Thank you for listening to Summat In t'Air. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please share it and tell your friends to listen.