Valerie Gibbons, of Seymour Drive, Dartmouth, writes:

This afternoon, as one of two local volunteers who empty collection tins for Devon Air Ambulance, I carried home two full tins from Duke Street shops.

Travelling through Townstal, it became apparent that there had been an incident near Yorke Road and, as I neared my home, the DAA helicopter manoeuvred onto the pitch of the town’s football club.

As I counted the cash from the two tins, medical experts, I have since learnt, were attending two young victims of a road traffic accident.

The helicopter and its ­marvellous crew were able to rush one of the injured to Bristol Children’s Hospital in the fastest possible time. Road travel, even with flashing lights and blaring sirens, would have taken between one and two valuable hours.

Coastguards and lifeguards, air ambulances, the RNLI, St John Ambulance and no doubt others are all there when most needed and add an enormous boost to the NHS. Each relies on volunteers, but of equal importance you, the donors, because without the funding the charities simply cannot function, however good their intentions.

In recent months, a long-term plan has come to fruition. DAA pilots have been training in the use of night goggles and towns and villages right across the region have been preparing for the helicopters being able to perform safe emergency landings in darkness. Accidents and medical emergencies don’t stop at dusk, but until recently DAA rescues have been restricted to the daylight hours.

Here in Dartmouth, Coronation Park and the ­football club’s pitch are the likely night-time community helipads because of the need for floodlighting, and DAA expects the landings to be ­possible in the near future.

Each emergency flight costs thousands of pounds, and I urge everyone to help DAA to help us, even by dropping odd pence into tins.

That small change soon turns into pounds. The DAA website also shows other ways in which we can all help.

May I send my very best wishes to all concerned in this accident.