9:29am Thursday 20th December 2007
By Gazette Reporter
A RYEDALE man has thanked emergency service workers who have given him a second chance at life.
In July, Marc Ellis, from Pickering, spent a week in intensive care after losing control of his car on the A169, smashing through a stone wall into a field next to the town's cemetery.
His passenger, who escaped unharmed, raised the alarm and the 26-year-old had to be cut free of the mangled wreckage before he was airlifted by helicopter to James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough.
Now the joiner, who suffered a broken hip and leg, a punctured kidney and other internal injuries, has raised more than £400 for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance which saved his life after whisking him to hospital for emergency treatment in just six minutes.
He said: "To be honest I can't remember much about the accident.
All I can remember are the firefighters reassuring me and the noise from the helicopter.
"I'm still not able to work but I'm just lucky to be alive.
"Without the help of the fire service and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, who flew me to hospital, I would not be here now."
Last month Marc and his friends from the Horse Shoe Inn in Pickering organised a musical fundraiser for the charity, which attends emergencies across the region.
In just one evening they collected £410 which they handed over to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance last week.
He added: "It costs £400 for each emergency call out and I'm pleased we reached this total.
"These guys gave me a second chance at life and I cannot thank everybody who came to help me enough.
"This is the first of many more fundraisers that I will be organising - without this service I wouldn't be alive and it's all I can do to show how grateful I am."
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