Dr Andrew ‘Andy’ Mason, from near Bury St Edmunds, to retire from Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS) 50 years to the day

Back in 1974 when Dr Andrew (Andy) Mason first got involved with Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS), emergency care medicine was in its infancy.

“Many emergency techniques and much of the equipment that we now use hadn’t been thought of back then,” said Dr Mason, from Norton, near Bury St Edmunds. “And general practitioners (GPs) were then the only people in a position to undertake advanced medical procedures outside hospital.”

Dr Mason joined SARS as a solo-responder when he started work as a GP at Woolpit Health Centre. And, when he finally retires tomorrow at the age of 75, it will be 50 years to the day since he first began volunteering for the charity – which itself reached 50 in 2022.

SARS, which has its HQ in Woolpit, provides specialist volunteer clinicians to assist the East of England Ambulance Service at the scenes of critical incidents where patients require an enhanced level of medical care before they reach hospital.

Dr Mason, a father of four and grandfather of six, said: “On 1st April 2024 it will be 50 years since I first started with SARS and I’ve decided that, before I get too old and even more befuddled, I will draw a line under everything.

“We’ve got such wonderful people working for SARS – doctors, paramedics and ordinary members of the public, who all volunteer their time without charge. It’s just tremendous what they do to support one of Suffolk’s most amazing charities.”

Dr Mason spent 40 years undertaking clinical duties for SARS before he stepped back from roadside duties in 2014, but he continued with the charity giving fund-raising presentations, CPR training for members of the public and road safety talks in schools and colleges.

Over four decades as a SARS solo-responder he dealt with around 2,000 calls – the equivalent of one a week – and with this type of work there is ‘no typical day’.

Dr Mason said: “Although SARS started out dealing with road accidents, we were soon being called to all types of serious trauma including falls and industrial and farming incidents. But eventually, our activities expanded to include any type of medical emergency, including cardiac arrests.”

He added: “Providing advanced medical care in the prehospital environment is now called Immediate Care medicine, and those who specialise in this area must be able to deal with any life-threatening medical situation with the aim of getting the patient to hospital alive.”

Dr Mason was the first doctor in Suffolk to carry a defibrillator, a life-saving device for those suffering a cardiac arrest.

“In the 1970s, use of a defibrillator in prehospital care wasn’t approved of by some medical colleagues,” he recalled. “In fact, with the first patient I took into the West Suffolk Hospital who I’d defibrillated in his home [in his capacity as a GP at Woolpit], I was told that this, ‘was a dangerous procedure that could only be undertaken in hospitals’. I was told that I should simply perform CPR on the next patient in cardiac arrest and bring them into hospital for defibrillation.

“However, I knew from work done in America and Brighton here in the UK, that early defibrillation was the key to survival. I knew that it had to be performed as soon as possible after a cardiac arrest, so I said ‘sorry, but I’m not going to do that’.”

And after pioneering the use of defibrillators in the community, public-access defibrillators are now widespread.

“We encourage members of the public who have no medical knowledge to defibrillate,” he said. “We know that it’s not a dangerous procedure. The dangerous thing for patients is to delay defibrillation.”

He added: “Even in retirement I still carry a defibrillator in the boot of my car, just in case I come across someone who might need it.”

Also, he is proud to have helped pioneer the use of an item of equipment called the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) to secure the airway in the prehospital care, and an equivalent device is now found on every frontline ambulance.

“So, I hope that I’ve been able to make some contribution to benefit seriously ill and injured patients in the community and I’m just grateful for the wonderful work that our paramedics now do,” he said. “They save lives on a regular basis.”

He added: “I'd also like to pay tribute to those members of the police and fire and rescue services that I've worked alongside over the years. When dealing with road traffic collisions in particular, getting critically injured casualties to hospital alive requires skilled teamwork.”

Dr Mason, who used to play for Bury St Edmunds Rugby Club and the county, was a GP at Woolpit Health Centre for 11 years until a serious rugby accident led him to retire from general practice at the age of 36.

He ended up becoming a ‘portfolio doctor’ taking on various jobs, such as a racecourse doctor at Newmarket where he worked for 28 years, while continuing his volunteering for SARS.

He said SARS had changed ‘beyond all recognition’ from the time when he first started. Immediate Care work was then carried out by GPs as there was nobody else to do it. Paramedics didn’t start to appear on frontline ambulances in our region until the late-1980s.

SARS supports a network of solo-responders who have their own fully-equipped vehicles and the charity also provides specialist rapid-response vehicles crewed by teams of doctors and paramedics.

Ben Hall, charity manager for SARS, and who happens to be Dr Mason’s son-in-law, said they could not thank Dr Mason enough for what he has done.

“Andy will be sorely missed,” he said. “He has made an unbelievable contribution to SARS over the last 50 years and without doubt we would not be in the position we are today without his amazing commitment to our charity. He is such a selfless man who will do everything he can to help people in need.”

When asked how he coped with the frontline accident and rescue work, Dr Mason said his ‘philosophical anchor’ had sustained him over the years and prevented burnout in face of all the distressing cases he has been called upon to deal with. “However, it's not all 'doom and gloom' and there are many amusing anecdotes too,” he said.

He also mentioned his faith as the reason why he became involved with SARS and, as a boy, he was inspired to become a doctor after hearing the parable of The Good Samaritan.

Dr Mason wanted to pay tribute to his wife Jane, saying: “The only way I could undertake the work for SARS was the tremendous support I have received from her over the years.

“This frequently involved getting up in the middle of the night and the sudden cancellation of planned family activities.”

When Dr Mason retired from clinical duties it was a ‘great wrench’ for him – for nearly a year he reflexively felt his belt to see if his pager was there – so he was pleased to get the opportunity to help with the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

His temporary emergency registration during the pandemic was only recently rescinded by the General Medical Council.

In retirement, he plans to give Jane more attention and focus on his various interests, including music; he plays guitar and has written more than a dozen hymns.

Dr Mason used to do an Elvis Presley tribute act with his triplet daughters Faith, Jemma and Clare as his backing singers (aka ‘The Masonettes’), when they performed with a local band called The Travelling Raspberries.

When asked whether he would now be dusting off his Elvis costume and wig, he said: “I lent the Elvis costume to someone and it never came back, but I doubt that I would fit into it now!”

Cllr Margaret Marks, honorary president of SARS, said on social media: “It would be impossible to count the thousands of lives positively impacted over 54 years of his dedicated service to medicine and the NHS.

“Fifty of these, not only as a serving doctor, but also a volunteer for SARS. They don't make them like him anymore.”