Amputee's 'emotional' reunion with life-saving crew

A man who fell 50ft (15.24m) from a bridge onto a dual carriageway after being hit by a car has had an “emotional” meeting with the air ambulance crew who saved his life.

Steve North, from Oakley, near Basingstoke, was left in a coma and had to have both legs amputated after the crash in 2016.

He now volunteers for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance - after they treated him at the scene of the crash and helped to save his life.

Mr North also recently became the number one ParaDarts player in the world.

Mr North had been walking to breakfast on his 38th birthday with his wife Kelly, when a car hit him on a Basingstoke bridge.

"The last thing I remember was a red bonnet, and then the next minute I was waking up ten days later in Southampton hospital," he said.

"Kelly said that she saw me spin in mid-air, and luckily I hit the ground by my legs."

A crew from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (HIOWAA) helped treat him at the scene, before flying him to hospital.

Mr North recently met with the crew that saved his life.

"To meet them, and for them to tell me their experiences that day, shaking hands with them and saying 'thank you' - it got emotional," he said.

Nicola Hawkes, aftercare manager at HIOWAA, said such meetings that "add information to their journey really help to accelerate" patients' recoveries.

"Not knowing what happened or having a daze in their memory that they can't quite make sense of is really quite distressing," she added.

Since his accident, Mr North has climbed the world rankings to become the globe's best ParaDarts player.

"All the rehab, it got me back playing, back to where I was before - just with prosthetic legs," he said.

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