Prince William has opened up about the ‘dark and sad moments’ he has endured while racing to save lives through his role as a pilot for East Anglia Air Ambulance.
The Duke of Cambridge works alongside a trauma team attending some of the most shocking and serious incidents, helping victims of car crashes and fires and aiming to get them within a ‘golden hour’ that can mean the difference between life and death.
William revealed the horrors they see can be so tough that the only way the team can get through them is to give each other counselling – along with a healthy dose of gallows humour.
He said: ‘There are some very sad, dark moments. We talk about it a lot, and that’s the best way of dealing with some of these situations. But it’s hard… It can be quite difficult.’
It comes as a new BBC Future feature today offers an insight into the clinicians, tools and technology that help EAAA reach anywhere in its area of more than 5,000 square miles within 25 minutes.
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Prince William, pictured, has revealed he has been through some ‘dark times’ in his role as a pilot for East Anglia Air Ambulance
The Duke of Cambridge started his role in July 2015 and said it was a ‘rewarding job’
A new BBC documentary reveals more about his role at the charity, in which he attends serious incidents to help victims of car crashes, industrial accidents and fires
William, pictured right with his wife the Duchess of Cambridge and children Prince George and Princess Charlotte, joined up with the air ambulance after the birth of his daughter
Known as Pilot William Wales to colleagues, the second-in-line to the throne added he found the job ‘rewarding’ and said patients ‘don’t care who turns up’ as long as they get the help they need.
The Prince said: ‘When I put my air ambulance hat on, and I come here and I fly, I’m one of the team.
‘I want to be a valuable member of the team and I want to get the job the done, and at the end of the day feel like I’ve made a difference and a contribution to whatever it is I’ve done that day.’
William works around 80 hours a month with the charity, with shift patterns usually working out at four days on, four days off.
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Earlier this year he was accused of being ‘workshy’, but sources close to the royal defended him as a ‘modern working father and husband’ whose hours are in line with Civil Aviation Authority guidelines.
A source close to the charity also suggested he was ‘hardly ever on shift’, but in the documentary members of the team reject this idea and said he quickly impressed them.
Critical care paramedic Jemma Varela said: ‘There was a tiny bit of nervousness having never met the Duke before, but within 10 minutes, he was just another member of the team. He’s a very popular member of the team. He works hard.’
CAA rules dictate that 800 hours is the maximum flying time in a 12-month period.
William has previous been accused of being ‘workshy’ but Kensington Palace says he works 80 hours per month in line with Civil Aviation Authority guidelines
His colleagues at the charity added he was a ‘popular’ member of the team who ‘works hard’
The Duke said he suffered anxieties about the job early on but quickly overcame them
The air ambulance aims to reach patients within a ‘golden hour’ which can mean the difference between life and death
William is one of 12 pilots who respond to around five calls a day with the EAAA, which employs both full and part-time pilots.
Despite the trials that come with the job, The Duke of Cambridge said he found it a rewarding endeavor, despite suffering anxieties early on.
He said: ‘I look forward to coming here every day, whether it’s at 5:30am or going to bed at 2am.
‘The shift work is exciting… And the fact that I love working in a team, and that’s something that my other job doesn’t necessarily do. You are more out there on your own a little bit.’
William added his fame as a royal does not affect his job with very little regard paid by patients and witnesses to the pilot of the helicopter during an incident.
He said: ‘Fortunately they [patients] don’t really care who turns up as long as they’re getting the care and the help that they need.
He said he looked forward to coming to work every day and wants to become a ‘valuable member of the team’
The Prince, pictured, said he was anxious about starting the role but that it had ‘turned out better than he could have possibly thought’
The Duke of Cambridge, pictured with his family on holiday, added he felt like he ‘made a difference’ through his work with the charity
‘I have to say I was a little bit anxious of some of that when I first started, because I didn’t want to bring any chaos or any sort of unhelpfulness to the scene.
‘And actually, it’s worked out better than I could possibly have thought.’
William said the rest of the crew were intimidated initially upon his arrival as to how relaxed they could be around him, but ‘within an hour’ they were laughing and joking with him.
He said: ‘When I turned up people were a little bit unsure of how to be around me. They were not quite sure how far they could push it.
‘But it became fairly obvious you can go quite far with me and I can take most things and give most things.
‘[When I first got here] it was polite but now it’s a lot worse as they have got to know me and you get worse and worse nicknames.’
The Prince declined to reveal what his nickname is, but does have the moniker Will.I.Am engraved on his coffee mug.
Air Ambulance captain James Pusey also revealed the royal enjoys horsing around with his colleagues to relax, whether it is playing ping pong or chasing each other around a room with mini drones.
The feature showed William has established a clear rapport with Capt Pusey and others, joking with the former about their lack of hair.
He also quipped he could be a professional skydiver or ‘International Man of Mystery’ if he was not a pilot.
The future king also gushed about the helicopter – the H-145 – which has a maximum speed of 170mph and can be on the scene of an incident in East Anglia within a matter of minutes.
William, pictured left and right with Kate, balances his time with the charity alongside his royal engagements
The Duke and his family often meet foreign diplomats and leaders, including US President Barack Obama who visited Kensington Palace earlier this year
William, pictured with the Royal Family during Charlotte’s christening, has quickly impressed the other members of his team, according to his colleagues
The state-of-the-art aircraft’s cabin is five yards long and has room for a doctor, critical-care paramedic, patient, extra passenger and two pilots.
He said: ‘What this aircraft brings is… a ‘critical care’ paramedic and doctor to the scene – a lot faster than you could possibly do by road or by any other means. It’s effectively bringing a hospital [emergency department] to the casualty.
‘The power of information at our fingertips – it sounds a bit corny and cliché – but it’s actually amazing.’
The programme reveals how quickly doctors can perform potentially life saving procedures at the scene of an accident.
THE PRINCE’S HELICOPTER
In the BBC feature the Prince gushed about the H-145 helicopter he pilots.
The aircraft has a top speed of 145mph and can reach incidents around East Anglia in a matter of minutes.
It can accommodate six people, including two pilots, a doctor, paramedic, patient and extra passenger.
The helicopter has twin engines and has been in production since 1999 by Airbus Helicopters, previously known as Eurocopters.
Doctor Adam Chesters said: ‘If the phone goes we’re airborne in four minutes, it could be five, six minutes of flying, on the scene in one minute, and then opening a chest and doing open heart surgery two minutes after that.
‘We are a team, a functional unit. It doesn’t matter what your personality type is, who you are, where you’ve come from, what your background is.
‘They understand that this is the important thing they are doing now. And when they’re here, they are part of the team.’
With people’s lives in their hands, the team also spoke of the challenges of carrying out procedures and the importance of being able to read each other, from a look or sudden silence, to assessing the situation both on the ground and in the air to ensure they deliver the best possible care to patients.
Ms Varela said: ‘It’s a very different environment. You miss out on a lot of little cues and things that you can’t have because you’ve got a huge helmet on that’s making your head heavy, making you hot. And you can only hear through your earpieces.’
Dr Chesters added ‘And the adrenaline control… As soon as that phone goes, the heart rate goes up – and when you get stressed and that adrenaline response, it can limit your motor skills.
‘You can get a shake… Add to that to the noise, the vibrations, the motion sickness. It’s quite a challenge to condition yourself to that.’
The Prince is no stranger to helicopters, pictured here in the Royal Helicopter as a boy in 1986
Prince William and his air ambulance trauma team will feature in a new documentary looking inside their race against time to reach patients in the ‘golden hour’. Stock image
It offers an insight into the clinicians, tools and technology that help East Anglia Air Ambulance Service (pictured, with Prince William, centre, in blue) reach anywhere in its area of more than 5,000 square miles within 25 minutes
The documentary looks at the life-saving work of the service, which last year attended 2,085 incidents, including fires, road traffic collisions, horse riding falls and industrial accidents.
Shown online on the BBC website today as part of National Air Ambulance Week, aims to promote the often forgotten work of the service, which Prince William proudly joined in 2015.
EAAA chief executive Patrick Peal said: ‘We are delighted to promote the lifesaving work of air ambulance charities and to celebrate the contribution of all our supporters throughout the country.’
Clive Dicken, national director of the Association of Air Ambulances, added: ‘Today on average 70 patients will be treated by air ambulances and during this, National Air Ambulance Week, we are asking the general public to support their local air ambulance charities and ambulance services.’
Featuring the Duke of Cambridge (pictured in uniform), known as Pilot William Wales to colleagues, it follows the trauma team in their dramatic rescues and race towards patients
The documentary will look at the life-saving work of the service, which last year attended 2,085 incidents, including fires, traffic collisions, horse riding falls and industrial accidents
The Prince earned his wings as a search and rescue pilot with the RAF, serving between 2009 and 2014 when it was announced he would train to be an air ambulance pilot.
He flew his first successful mission in the role – believed to come with a £40,000-a-year salary that will be donated to the Air Ambulance charity – in July 2015 as he returned to work after the birth of Princess Charlotte.
Another of his first jobs was a suicide and he has since campaigned to highlight the issues surrounding male suicide, talking at a mental health charity event in March this year.
The Prince has also been called to a stabbing and even a prison, as the team treated an inmate at HMP Highpoint in September last year – where four jail staff guarded the royal.
As well as flying rescue missions, the prince helps with fueling and maintenance work on the vehicles at his base in Cambridge
As well as flying rescue missions, the prince is expected to help with fueling and maintenance work on the vehicles at his base in Cambridge, near the Georgian country house where he lives with the family.
He and the Duchess, along with their children George and Charlotte, live in the home, which had a £1.5million refit before he started the job, paid for with the Royal Family’s private funds.
Since its launch in 2000, East Anglia Air Ambulance Service has attended over 19,000 lifesaving missions, touching the lives of thousands of people and their families.
Doctors and critical-care paramedic teams treat patients with life-threatening or life-changing emergencies at the scene of their accident or emergency, taking the emergency department to the patients.
The crews are specially trained doctors and critical-care paramedics, who play a crucial role in the provision of trauma care, with two helicopters operating across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk.
They transfer patients to the appropriate hospital rapidly, when necessary, and can fly to the most inaccessible places, often unreachable by ambulances.
But despite offering a vital lifesaving service every day of the year, it is a charity funded by the local people of East Anglia.
This year, it will need to raise just over £11 million to maintain its fleet of helicopters and the extended service into the hours of darkness.