Supporting Karen Bramston

Karen is a former colleague of ours at the ambulance service, she gave over 27 years as a Paramedic, and in recent years she has been "living her best life" with British Airways as cabin crew.

Whilst Karen was in the Dominican Republic on a stop-over, she suddenly collapsed. She was alone and when she came round she immediately knew that she had broken her neck. She was unable to move any limbs and spent 3 hours shouting for help, eventually she was found by a security team and an ambulance was called.

That same evening, thanks to British Airways, she was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, a world renowned trauma and spinal injuries unit. Following an assessment, Karen found out that she had collapsed due to a saddle embolism in her lung. She underwent a manual manipulation of the dislocated vertebrae in her neck, had a filter inserted to her inferior vena cava to aid with the blood clot, and also had surgery to remove a disc pressing on her spinal cord, along with a decompression of 2 fractures in her neck, Karen remains quadriplegic due to the C5 neck injury. Following this barrage of treatment Karen was in intensive care for some time before being moved to a rehabilitation unit for a further 28 days.

During rehabilitation therapies Karens strength and determination has shone through, she is beginning to gain some use of her arms, and with electrodes is learning to grip and release using her hands.

Karen has been repatriated to the UK and remains in an NHS hospital, waiting to go to Stoke Mandeville rehabilitation unit, where there is a 3-6 month waiting list!

We have set up this donation page to help support Karen and her family. To help with the intense stressors of suddenly having no income and no entitlement to company sickness benefits, and to support with future treatments and therapies!

Karen is such a caring and supportive person and will be very humbled by anything we can raise to support her, she has supported many ambulance staff in her career and remains firm friends with many, despite her career change. She is a strong woman who is facing this devastating event with amazing determination, so please give whatever you can, big or small, and please, share far and wide.

Thank you!